Summary: The Hyundai Elantra Touring is a family-friendly, small station wagon with a Volkswagen look and feel. It offers most of the features of Jetta Sportswagen, for about $4,000 less.
I'm a wannabe history teacher, so this will be a long review. Try to bear with me, or skip ahead. And full disclosure - my car is the 2009 Elantra Touring SE. After six months and 5,000 miles, it is time to write a full review and try to spread the good word about Hyundai's new, global compact car platform that somehow had the good fortune to be brought to the US (one version of it, anyway).
I think this is going to be the longest car review ever (and I told my editor not to bother cutting this post). So if you want really good, edited reviews of this car from around the world, please see them here here here here here here here here here and here! They are all good! And even the picky reviewers at The Truth About Cars liked the Elantra Touring, here.
Only one major reviewer gave the Elantra Touring a negative review. Warren Brown of the Washington Post had a falling out with the car a few weeks after falling in love with it.
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One of my favorite movies of this soon-to-be-finished decade is Layer Cake (2004). Remember the strong nine minute opening? Daniel Craig introduces himself as a successful cocaine dealer who operates in plain sight in a Kesington flat (across from the Queens Arms pub), and supported by an apprentice (Tom Hardy), his muscle (George Harris), and an Irish boss (Colm Meaney). Craig, leading a film cast for the first time in his career, and looking like Steve McQueen more than ever, tells us that he's ready to quit the drug game.
We see a transition from night to day. Craig exits his flat to join his three colleagues in their car. They speed-off to a massive country club....in an Audi RS6 Avant station wagon.
In an American crime film, there is simply no way that vehicle appears as the ride for our criminal protagonists.
History Lesson
The European station wagon. It has been available in the USA in one form or another since the Mercedes Ponton back in 1960. In the late 1960s Mercedes continuted to offer wagons on a special order basis with the 230 wagon. Volvo, Audi, BMW, Volkswagen, and Peugeot all followed Mercedes and offered wagon versions of their cars beginning in the 1970s.
Flash forward 40 years later, and the same European manufacturers (minus Peugeot) are still selling small quantities of wagons in the US. Volkswagen offers two front wheel drive wagons, with either gasoline or turbodiesel engines. Audi offers three premium rides in a variety of FWD and AWD configurations. BMW and Mercedes each offer two wagons with rear or all-wheel-drive. And Volvo offers three wagons with either FWD or AWD. Off the top of my head, there are at least 18 wagon models to choose from from these European car makers. While sales of European wagons are low, the selection is pretty high, ranging from the $25,000 VW Jetta Sportswagen, to the Audi A6 Avant and BMW 530xi wagons, both of which top-out around $60,000.
Even the now-defunct Saturn brand, brought three Opel wagons to the US. They offered the SW2, the LW300, and the short-lived, Mexican-built Astra (which is sold in Australia and Europe under the Vauxhall and Opel brands).
And last year, Cadillac surprised a lot of people by introducing the CTS Sport Wagon, the fastest and most powerful station wagon ever produced by an American company. And it's a hit!
In a country that has been avoiding station wagons since the late 1980s, there can't possibly be room for more models, right?
Enter the east Asian car makers.
Japanese automakers realized back in the 1980s, that the only sure way to anchor themselves into the European market was to offer what European families want: station wagons (also called estates, combis, avants, tourings, and crossover wagons (CW's)). Since the 1950s, American buyers have been marketed and encouraged to upgrade from coupes to sedans to wagons (and later minivans and SUVs). Since the 1970s, European buyers have been encouraged to upgrade their car sizes in a more direct path - from 5-door hatchbacks to 5-door wagons, in an enormous variety of shapes, sizes, and nationalities. Hatchbacks and wagons in Europe are currently sold by 17 major manufacturers, each offering several platforms and models. Just take a look at any parking lot in western or central Europe to see how hatchbacks outsell sedans. With fuel costs and annual gas guzzler taxes as steep as they are, Europeans are forced to buy maximum interior room for their money - and that's not a bad thing at all. I sure wish I grew-up in the hatchback version of the Toyota Corolla or the 4WD Turcel wagon, rather than the Corolla sedan back in the mid 80s.
Which brings me back to the Japanese competitors. Beginning in the early 1980s, Japanese brands did the simplest thing they could to break into the large European wagon market. They made wagon versions of their ubiquitous sedans that would soon become best-sellers in the US. Wagon (or "estate") versions of the Maxima, Camry, and Accord quickly appeared in the US and Europe. But Japanese makers also looked to their domestic market for two other body types they could sell in Europe and occasionally the USA. What's interesting is that these two body types are still massively popular in Japan, and among Japanese car enthusiasts worldwide.
The first is the 'tallboy' wagon or minivan. The tallboy is essentially a compact sedan turned into a hatchback, but with a higher roof line. It's basically an urban minivan. Enthusiasts in the US were lucky to see a few of these cars. One notable example was the 1984-1987 Honda Civic Wagon (called the Shuttle in the UK). It was truly odd, featuring a funny pop-up center vent cluster and an arguably distracting instrument panel with a 'grid paper' graphic design. It was also the first Honda in the US to be offered with four wheel drive. Honda had a strong following in the US from its start in the late 1960s. But not many mechanics or prospective owners wanted to deal with the auxiliary valve added to each cylinder of the CVCC engine.
More Americans remember the boxy 1983-1986 Toyota Turcell 4WD wagon. Larger and more spacious than the tiny sedan on which it was based, the Turcell wagon was actually larger and a hair less powerful than the E80 Toyota Corolla sedan of the same era. Although it barely produced 80 horsepower, it had a more powerful and torquey all-wheel-drive system than the Honda Civic Shuttle (however, the 4WD system was only supposed to be used in wet conditions, as the system had no center differential for full-time use). Its very distinctive rear end will live in the memories of Generation X for life.
In the years since, we have seen a few more. The Mitsubishi Eclipse tallboy was briefly sold in the USA as the Eagle Summit. The first Honda Odyssey was a 1990s version of the Civic Shuttle. And today, there are two tallboys on the US market, the Mazda 5, and the Kia Rondo.
Japan's second space-maximizing design innovation was born out of pro-automobile government legislation beginning in 1948. We know Japanese cars for their many hatchbacks, tallboy minivans, all-wheel-drive rally racers, and world-renowned GT coupes. But the most popular vehicles in the Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) have been minicars, called kei cars. Japan's mercantilist / protectionist flavor of capitalism led the government to promote car buying by the nation's young working and middle-class. High gasoline prices, annual taxes, and insurance were discouraging car buying, and many young people were choosing scooters and motorcycles instead. So Japan strongly encouraged an entry-level class of minicar with maximum length, width and engine size regulations. What the government didn't do, was impose a strict height limit, so by the 1960s, manufacturers were making tall, boxy urban vehicles that carried quite a lot of cargo, but got impressive fuel economy. When Subaru introduced the first 'kei van', the Sambar, in 1961, it opened the flood gates on boxy designs that continue to this day. The quartet of customizable Nissan 'Pike Factory' kei cars made their way into US car magazines in 1989. But it would be another 12 years of market research and internet-fueled consumer demand before kei cars came to the USA as Scions, the Honda Fit, and the Nissan Cube.
Today, the Asian, Bermuda/Caribbean, and European markets have several kei cars available such as the Daihatsu Move (and abut 4 other Daihatsu models), the Suzuki Wagon R (which won the sales crown in Japan 1998-2001), the Suzuki SW microvan, the Subaru Stella, and the Honda Life, which might come to USA due to Honda enthusiast demand which also brought us the Fit. But Japan keeps most kei cars to its domestic market, and they continue to be the best-selling class of automobile in Japan today, as fuel prices, taxes, and insurance are as high as they've ever been. What's interesting is that for years, the Japanese assumed that the rest of the world would not want kei cars because they're ugly. But now they are in-demand in from India to southern California for being economical, cute, and practical. They are probably the chiuauas of the automotive world. One company in Tokyo lets US buyers import the kei car of their choice for $15,000 plus a hefty importation fee.
Asian Wagons Gain Acceptance
Japanese manufacturers rarely try to produce a European-style sedan or wagon. Historically, intruding on European turf with a car asking to be compared to European models is asking for trouble. The Volkswagen family (VW, Seat, Skoda) produces solid 5-door front-wheel-drive hatchbacks for the masses. The french trio of Reneault, Peugeot, and Citroen produce refined front-wheel-drive cars in various shapes and sizes. If a consumer becomes wealthy enough, he or she can always upgrade to the rear or all-wheel-drive luxury of BMW, Mercedes, and Audi. And if the driver is an oddball, Subarus, Fiats, and Afla Romeos are available throughout Europe. Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Mitsubishi have gradually improved their front-wheel-drive cars so they feel better on the road, but admittedly, they just don't have tight, balanced feel of the German or French cars. In fact, over the last 10 years, Honda and Nissan have occasionally tossed engineering common sense aside and produced 300HP front wheel drive sedans for the power-hungry US market (see the Acura TL and Nissan Maxima). But at least they knew such overpowered front-drive sedans would never sell in Europe.
Eventually, good car engineering came to Europe from a Japanese car maker. Surely there must be debate as to when this happened, but my vote is with the third generation European Honda Accord in 2003 (brought to the USA as the Acura TSX). It had what premium European sports sedans and wagons had: an aluminum inline-4 engine with variable valve timing, four-wheel disc brakes, stiffer coil springs front and rear, a soft-touch dashboard, classic analog instrumentation seen through a leather 3-spoke steering wheel, 17-inch alloy wheels, sunroof, and a price around $30,000 USD. While not cheap, it is the price Europeans are willing to pay for that level of refinement and sportiness. And being built at the Honda plant in Swindon, England, it could be accepted as European-designed and built. It became a hit in England, Germany, and other parts of northwest Europe. It couldn't crack Volkswagen's Spanish or Czech markets. But the Accord Tourer, the wagon version, is arguably the best Honda in Europe. It gets a lot of attention from American Honda enthusiasts who would rather drive their families in a diesel wagon than the bland CR-V.
And when Subaru released its third generation Outback in 2004, the game was really afoot. It was a beautifully balanced wagon with true off-road capability, and quieter than most Japanese midsize cars.
In Europe, the length of your hatchback is likely a reflection of your family size. Take Peugeot for example. They offer the 206, 306, and 406 models (soon to all end with an 8, it seems). All are available as hatchbacks or station wagons (with the 406 also offered as a luxury cope and sedan). My girl's cousin in the Czech Republic has a 206sw as his company car, for example. Every European manufacturer offers both hatchbacks and wagon versions of those hatchbacks in more than one platform, ensuring that individuals and families can find a car that is perfectly sized for their needs and tax / fuel budget.
Hyundai's Breakthrough