BLIND ATTRACTION

WE DRIVE HYUNDAI'S HYPER-HOT N VISION 74 CONCEPT-AND IT JUST MIGHT REACH PRODUCTION

- ANGUS MACKENZIE

The Hyundai N Vision 74 is the hottest concept car of the decade, and not just because its Tokyo Driftmeets-1980s-box-fenders visuals blew up everyone's phones when the first images appeared a few months ago. No, the N Vision 74 is much more than stunning eye candy confected under the direction of Hyundai design chief SangYup Lee. This fully functioning, fully drivable concept teases Hyundai's vision of the future for 21st century performance cars.

And it's totally production feasible.

That's right. Instead of the usual concept car mix of vaporware and unobtanium under the skin, the N Vision 74 uses hardware and technologies you'll find in existing Hyundai production vehicles. What's more, Hyundai N brand sources hint that if enough people want one, senior management might well be persuaded to produce a street-legal model.

The N Vision 74 celebrates a Hyundai that was never built, the 1974 Pony Coupe concept, designed by the legendary Giorgetto Giugiaro. For Lee, who left South Korea at the age of 18 and has spent 26 years working in automotive design studios for 15 brands in eight countries, and whose design credits include the 2010 Chevy Camaro and today's Bentley Continental GT, this paean to the Pony Coupe was a deeply personal project. "I've sketched N Vision 74 ideas for years," he says. "I was even sketching them on the plane to Korea, on my way to start at Hyundai. I wanted to create a car that celebrated Hyundai's roots." Turning those sketches into three-dimensional reality involved Hyundai's N brand management and motorsport subdivision, the in-house hot shop set up by former BMW M boss Albert Biermann.

For N, now run by former Mercedes-Benz executive Till Wartenberg, the N Vision 74 idea became part of its Rolling Lab program, where fully functional prototypes are engineered and built to test and evaluate performance-enhancing ideas and technologies.