Hyundai Shows Refreshed Elantra N in Shanghai

If you liked those styling tweaks given to the upcoming Elantra (née Avante), you’ll surely enjoy Hyundai’s treatment of its upcoming N variant. Shown this week at the Shanghai Auto Show, the N sallies forth with styling improvements found on the standard car – turned up to 11, of course.

While the Elantra N rear fascia looks very similar to last year’s model, the front end takes on a sharper look and bins some of the odd shapes which made it look like a surprised sculpin. The sleek and smooth nose has a light bar bookended by new headlamps (maybe Mercury was simply ahead of its time) and appropriately grumpy angles have been given to the bumper and intake areas.

Sharp character creases remain on its flanks, flummoxing anyone seeking to affix business decals and giving those who wrap cars for a living more nightmares than they can handle. The machine shown in these images has a different set of wheels than previously seen on an Elantra N, though those could be region-specific and swapped out at any time. We hope the black badges make it here, as well.

Something else we hope isn’t lost in translation? The current car’s manual transmission. While there is no indication of any sort the N’s stick is on the chopping block, we’re always weary of dour bean-counting losers inside companies who’ll push for cost savings at the expense of driving fun. At present, the Elantra N makes 276 horses from a turbocharged 2.0L inline-four, along with appropriately entertaining crackle-n-bang settings for the exhaust.

That reminds us – in the autumn of last year, an Elantra N owner was hauled over and informed by a blustering cop that the car was illegal in its existing operation mode and it would cost $7,000 to remove the offending parts and make it kosher. Er, right. Leaving aside all observations about how people in positions of authority can cause lots of headaches simply because they are ill-informed or simply having a bad day, recent updates to the case indicate the driver no longer owns the Elantra N. All the details are at that link but the TL;DR is that Hyundai bought back the car even though it was operating exactly as designed.

The 2024 Elantra, and its N variant, will likely show up on this side of the pond within the next 12 months.

[Images: Hyundai]

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