Hyundai Coupe

Overview

The Hyundai Coupe became the worlds best selling car in its class and the best selling Coupe in the UK.

Generally our reviewers feel the Tiburon coupe is a good buy with excellent mileage for a car in its class and with a decent balance of style and reliability.

The Coupe otherwise known as the Tiburon - which means shark in Spanish - due to its sharp-edged fluted flanks - first went on sale in 1997.

Hyundai was developing more of a European appeal and the excellent specification and build quality of the coupe was part of this. Just two models - Tiburon and Tiburon V6 comprise the range.

Specification

The car bears little resemblance to the first Hyundai S Coupe. Inside the exterior had some nice extra elements with heavily contoured deep side bolstering and sports seat.

Tiburons real appeal is that it is a nice tourer with sports credentials. Although bigger than the earlier Coupe, Tiburon was marketed as aerodynamically more efficient compared to others on the market. Hyundai also boasted fine tuning the all-independent suspension to provide better handling and agility as well as noise reduction.

Tiburon V6 is similar to Hyundais 2.7 litre all-alloy quad-cam Delta V6, making it Hyundais first six cylinder sports car and also its first car with a six-speed manual gearbox.

Tiburon has a stronger bigger body shell with reinforced one-piece B-pillar/side rail pressings, uprated lower dash crossbar and seven-way offset front crash energy path.

Other safety spec includes, for both models, pollen-filtering air conditioning, driver and front passenger airbags, four-wheel disc brakes, engine immobiliser, remote central locking with alarm, electric windows and door mirrors, a quality six-speaker radio/CD player and trip computer.

The V6 also adds unseen but effective four-channel ABS anti-skid brakes with electronic brake force distribution. Interior includes leather trimmed steering-wheel rim and auto gearshift knob, three auxiliary gauges (torque, volts and fuel usage), cruise control stalk on the steering wheel and package net in the boot.

Tiburon offers a variety of clever storage options including air-con-cooled retractable cup holder, rubber lift-out sleeved recesses for a second cup and a mobile phone, a roof console with sunglasses holder (and map lights), a lidded centre console bin with special CD stowage, ticket slots, vanity mirrors in both sun visors, a lidded recess by the right rear seat, a wet lift-out tray in the spare wheel centre and in the V6 an elasticized luggage net stretched across the now tri-fold floor of the unusually big boot. This is just a sample.

Future model

One to watch out for is the Hyundai Coupe Convertible due out in a couple of years. Styling is similar to HCD8 concept and the top of the range version could have a supercharged 2.7 V6. This model will replace earlier Coupe Tiburons altogether.

Vital statistics

In automatic form both Tiburon models offer Selectronic sequential clutchless manual mode. Tiburons V6 delivers up to 127kW of power at 6000rpm, maximum torque of 245Nm at 4000rpm and the manual can sprint from 0-100 km/h in 8.2 seconds, 0-400m in 15.8 seconds and has a potential 220 km/h.