A King On Paper
On paper the Elantra N appears to easily be the best contender in its segment. Before we proceed we should first define what that segment is, I’ve stuck to calling it the affordable daily driver segment, meaning cheap vehicles that while being good daily drivers, also offer some performance. If we get technical about it, I define its segment to be cheap performance sedans or hatchbacks that can be driven in winter (meaning front-wheel or all-wheel drive). This segment then would include the Honda Civic Si, Volkswagen Golf GTI and Subaru WRX.
Now picking up where we left off, on paper the Elantra N appears to be one of, or the best vehicles in this segment. Reviewers have been praising it for quite some time now, a quick search on social media can prove this. It has the most power of the bunch, just narrowly beating out the WRX, it can be configured with either an automatic (DCT) or manual (6 speed) transmission and has a great sounding exhaust. None of its competitors offer this solid of a package, nor do any of them combine all of those aspects. Reviewers state that is has excellent driving dynamics and is on par or not far behind its competitors in other metrics. So then, if it is clearly the king of its segment, why don’t we see it everywhere? Why are buyers hesitant to buy what seems like the obvious best choice? Is it in fact, a false king?
I have a few theories about this, namely two actually. The first is brand reputation and the second is identity crisis.
Brand Reputation
Over the years, Hyundai has not exactly been known for developing reliable vehicles. In fact Hyundai’s 2011 – 2014 2.4l engine maybe one of the worst ever made, at least in terms of reliability. I would go as far as to say that it may have been the single greatest damaging event to a car brand in recent years. However, this may all be a thing of the past, many would agree that all modern vehicles are far more reliable than they used to be. I’ve been considering purchasing a car in this class, and the Elantra N has been on my radar, thus I have been researching it extensively. I have yet to find any reports of the Elantra being widely unreliable or suffering from any major engineering flaws. But not everyone would share my opinion nor do my level of research (it is borderline obsessive). For example, my parents would never choose to buy a Hyundai, simply because of the brands reputation (in their eyes). I believe that this is the largest roadblock preventing the Elantra N from being more widely purchased.
The Identity Crisis
My second theory is about an identity crisis, this car also doesn’t quite seem to know what it wants to be. Its price tag matches it up with entry level sedans, but its performance numbers allow it to compete more with the higher models, such as the Honda Civic Type R, Volkswagen Golf R and Acura Integra Type S. Its performance isn’t quite up to their level yet, but it is far above the vehicles in its class. However, it is not as luxurious, or feature packed as those higher models are either. Now additionally, I think the Elantra N isn’t the best daily driver in its class, I think that the Civic Si wins that title. The Si has a nicer interior (debatable, I know), a better sound system, and Honda’s great infotainment. The Golf GTI has a terrible infotainment system, and while the WRX is pretty close to the Elantra N in performance, its lackluster interior and sound system do not make it a better daily driver. I personally think that this hurts the Elantra N in a big way, people who are shopping in its class are likely looking for a daily driver, and the Civic Si is the better daily driver. People who are after performance likely have their eyes set on the higher level vehicles.
Final Thoughts
This leaves the Elantra N in a weird position between classes of vehicles, it is faster than most entry level sedans, but not most performance sedans. It is a better daily driver than most economy cars, but not than other vehicles in its class. In a perfect world, it could be the king of the entry level performance sedan world, where people had forgotten about the days when Hyundai was unreliable, and where the Civic Si didn’t exist. But, we do not live in that world, which is why I am crowning the Elantra N as the False King of the entry level performance sedan market.
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Hi! I’m sorry for the late reply, but I don’t get notifications for comments apparently. I’m flattered that you’d consider this to be an established blog, and in fact I’d like to ask how you even stumbled across my blog. I haven’t been getting very many page views at all so I’m curious.
Now to answer your question, it wasn’t really hard at all. I’m a fairly technical person, but I didn’t need to use any of my technical skills. I googled it, and I found a bunch of reddit threads that were full of people sharing how they did it. In my opinion the easiest seems to be paying for a hosting service (something like dreamhost) and then installing WordPress. You’d need to pay for the hosting, but WordPress will be free this way, and you would own the domain.
As for building an designing the blog, WordPress has tons of built-in tools for that. They have some AI tools as well that can design the website for you. I ended up taking one of their starter templates and modifying it to my own liking.
I really appreciate the comment and am happy to help more if I can. If I don’t reply to the comment quickly, you can use the contact tab to send me an email, I should get a notification for those. But I will try to check comments more regularly now. Thanks again.