The hydrogen powertrain is the headline-grabber, but the cleverness of the traction management is the most impressive thing. My only substantive criticism, beyond the limitation of a four-lap stint, is the slightly wooden brake pedal and a reluctance to shed the speed that the motor is so able to wind on.
Hey, I’ve seen this one, it’s a classic
Hyundai has long been a forward-looking brand, one driven by the understandable desire to move beyond its origins as a maker of cheap and frequently cheerless cars.
Yet the N Vision 74 has been inspired by one of its earliest models. When the original Hyundai Pony was shown at Turin in 1974, the fledgling company, which had previously made Ford Cortinas under licence, also introduced a concept for a coupé version – one that, like the hatch, had been designed by Giorgio Giugiaro at Italdesign. The car didn’t make production, but Giugiaro was canny enough to recycle some of the themes into the DeLorean DMC.
Hyundai design chief SangYup Lee is keen to stress the N Vision 74 isn’t an attempt at a retro recreation, but that Pony Coupé was clearly used as a jumping-off point, with details such as the sharp transition from the roof to rear screen, the crisply angular glasshouse and deep front grille paying affectionate homage.
The concept’s main role was to attract attention, which it did, but production sadly seems unlikely.
“We could maybe do it as a pure EV,” says executive technical advisor Albert Biermann. “But it couldn’t sit on the EGMP platform and keep these proportions, so we would have to lift it significantly or make a new battery.”
Driving the RN22e
The RN22e is less novel but much closer to production reality. Beneath the wings and ducts the basic shape is that of the new Ioniq 6, and the underpinnings in effect preview most of the hardware we will see for the first time on the Ioniq 5 N. That means the same 77.4kWh 800V powerpack and dual-motor system that we’ve already experienced in the hugely impressive Kia EV6 GT. Deviations from that set-up are a rear differential featuring twin clutch packs to allow much more aggressive torque-vectoring, plus the promise of circuit-level regeneration.