The most famous letter in all of the automotive world is ‘M’. It represents BMW’s M Division and some of the most famous performance cars in history. The former head of BMW’s M Division is Albert Biermann, the man who is currently spearheading a new performance subdivision for Hyundai, ironically named, the N Division.
Hyundai’s new N Division will be behind creating proper performance variants of several Hyundai and KIA vehicles. The first vehicle to come out of this newfound N Division will be Hyundai’s i30 N. The i30 is a small hatchback that competes with cars like theVolkswagen Golf. So a hopped up i30 N would most likely compete with the Volkswagen GTI and Ford Focus ST. This upcoming i30 N has recently been spotted testing at the Nurburgring, so it should be able to actually keep up with those two.
Hyundai’s N cars will come with more aggressive body work, have stiffer suspensions and more power than their standard model counterparts. There’s no word on exactly what kind of power that the Hyundai i30 N will produce, but it will use a 1.6 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine and will likely make VW GTI levels of power, maybe even more. So expect between 200 and 230 hp. While that won’t scare a single BMW, it could be in line to compete with cars like the 228i, in terms of performance and would come with a lot more kit for a much lower price.
While an i30 N won’t really compete with BMWs, it’s possible that a version of the Hyundai Genesis sedan could get the N Division treatment and could possible be a rival to a BMW M5. It’s strange to think that any sort of Hyundai could compete with anything from the M Division, but the South Koreans are sneakily getting quite good. Don’t forget that it’s BMW’s former M Division Boss is the one in charge of the Hyundai’s new N Division, so they now know a thing or two about performance. Maybe we’ll see some great performance cars come out of South Korea sometime soon. And if so, they’ll have a familiar name.
