The surprising Hyundai XG300
Does anybody remember the Hyundai brand when it showed up in Canada in 1986? Its only product was a very unexpensive and low tech sub-compact, the rear-wheel driven Pony powered by a carburated four-cylinder engine? Would you believe that in 2001, the same Korean automaker is showing up with a luxury sedan? Yep! That?s what its XG300 is all about.
The XG300 is the biggest and the most expensive automobile ever produced by Hyundai in America (the Korean market gets a lot bigger car that will never be sold on our continent, the Equus) and it is packed with luxury items including power everything, a six-way power driver?s seat, a four-way passenger seat, a trip computer, a CD player, a very efficient automatic climate control and fold-down rear seat.
From the exterior, it is easy to see that the XG300 gets the same body as the Sonata does but its front end has a more formal grille that makes it look like a luxury car. Mechanically speaking, the XG300 still is a front-wheel-driven car powered by a Mitsubishi developped 3.0-litre V6 that delivers 190 hp, enough to give good acceleration and passing power but not exciting performance. The only transmission available is a five-speed automatic that can be used in a Tiptronic or Autoshift type of operation called Shiftronic in this case, something that I got tired of playing with very quickly. Actually, I liked it mostly to downshift. My tester was equiped with four-wheel disk brakes, ABS and traction control, the latter coming handy in winter situations. By the way, Hyundai Canada had the great idea of installing Michelin Pilot Alpin winter tires on my tester XG300 and I can testify that they worked fine on this particular car.
Does anybody remember the Hyundai brand when it showed up in Canada in 1986? Its only product was a very unexpensive and low tech sub-compact, the rear-wheel driven Pony powered by a carburated four-cylinder engine? Would you believe that in 2001, the same Korean automaker is showing up with a luxury sedan? Yep! That?s what its XG300 is all about.
The XG300 is the biggest and the most expensive automobile ever produced by Hyundai in America (the Korean market gets a lot bigger car that will never be sold on our continent, the Equus) and it is packed with luxury items including power everything, a six-way power driver?s seat, a four-way passenger seat, a trip computer, a CD player, a very efficient automatic climate control and fold-down rear seat.
From the exterior, it is easy to see that the XG300 gets the same body as the Sonata does but its front end has a more formal grille that makes it look like a luxury car. Mechanically speaking, the XG300 still is a front-wheel-driven car powered by a Mitsubishi developped 3.0-litre V6 that delivers 190 hp, enough to give good acceleration and passing power but not exciting performance. The only transmission available is a five-speed automatic that can be used in a Tiptronic or Autoshift type of operation called Shiftronic in this case, something that I got tired of playing with very quickly. Actually, I liked it mostly to downshift. My tester was equiped with four-wheel disk brakes, ABS and traction control, the latter coming handy in winter situations. By the way, Hyundai Canada had the great idea of installing Michelin Pilot Alpin winter tires on my tester XG300 and I can testify that they worked fine on this particular car.