2020 Hyundai Veloster N Review: Long Live the Veloster N

Auto reviews the 2020 Hyundai Veloster N.

Two years almost to the day after my first encounter with Korean automaker Hyundai’s most advanced sports car, I had occasion to take the wheel of the 2020 Hyundai Veloster N on Canadian soil – well, road. Unfortunately, this test drive took place on roads in and around the greater Montreal area and not on a closed circuit, where the little N is at its most comfortable expressing itself to its fullest.

While there’s no arguing that the track is its most flattering environment, the Veloster N was also designed to be driven twelve months a year, winter and summer, even though we all know roads in our country that will make driving most unpleasant when a car is equipped with a concrete-hard suspension like this one’s. The good news is that the Veloster N's electronic adjustments allow for a slightly more tolerable ride. Slightly. I'll come back to this later.

What's certain is that the Veloster N is part of an endangered species. Affordable performance cars are becoming increasingly rare as the calendar flips to 2021. In fact, starting with the 2021 model-year, the Veloster N is the one and only Veloster available on the market - the other two versions are leaving us after 2020. And even this variant's survival could be due mainly to Hyundai not wanting to have all its marketing efforts regarding the newly created N performance division go for naught.

On the road to extinction?
Sadly, we shouldn’t be too be surprised if the Korean giant pulls the plug on this 275-hp Veloster bomb once the other N-branded offerings wash ashore in North America. It could take a few years before the Elantra N, Kona N, and others are all implanted here, but once they are it might be curtains for the Veloster N.

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