M Adjacent

Hyundais first performance special to make it stateside, the Veloster N is a hot hatch that can hang with the best of them.

- Eric Tingwall

IN STANDS FOR NAMYANG. Or at least that was Hyundai’s declaration when it dreamed up the N performance subbrand in 2013. It seemed a curious choice considering that Namyang, the South Korean home of Hyundai’s R&D campus, has neither the track record nor the actual track that might make the place synonymous with performance. There’s more elevation change over a typical Walmart parking lot than on Namyang’s handling course, and a simple autocross in said parking lot would be a better driving exercise for anything the N division would go on to build. To us, Namyang’s modest proving grounds are an apt symbol of why Hyundai’s cars have remained dynamically indifferent even as their quality, design, and feature content rocket ahead. Invoking Namyang for this ambitious endeavor felt like naming your nineyear-old’s flag-football team after the Detroit Lions.

Someone at Hyundai must have recognized this, because the company soon claimed that N actually had two meanings: Namyang and Nürburgring. That resonated. The longest and most demanding racetrack in the world is an inimitable measuring stick. A Hyundai that could ably loop the Nürburgring Nordschleife would have to be unlike any we’ve known.

That’s exactly what the 2019 Hyundai Veloster N is. Due in dealerships next month, the front-wheel-drive hot hatch is the second vehicle developed by N and the first that will reach America. Placing its metal where its mouth is, Hyundai delivered us to Germany to hustle the Veloster N around the Green Hell and through the Rhineland. During our two laps of the 12.9-mile Nordschleife and an hourlong tear through the surrounding countryside, we reveled in an animated engine, faithful steering, assured body control, steadfast brakes, a remarkable resistance to understeer, and emotions we’ve never before unlocked with a Hyundai.