The facelifted Hyundai Coupe – or Tiburon in select markets – has now reached the age where it kind of looks cool. No, really, hear me out: I don’t hate the bug-eyed front. Sure, it makes barely any sense compared to the attractive-but-maybe-a-little-plain original, but viewed on its own, it’s bold and daring and swoopy.
It does appear a little small-wheeled, but these things are getting very cheap and they still seem to hold on pretty decently, at least here.
The rear is maybe a little bit better, even, than the front. Somehow the spoiler on the trunklid seems almost crucial, as the car wouldn’t look balanced without it.
The engine here, on this 2001 car is the very regular 2.0-litre 16V engine with 140-ish hp.
Weekend Edition – Helsinki Street Sightings: Hyundai Coupe
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There’s bold, daring, and swoopy, and then there’s just plain bug-eyed weird. The Hyundai crosses the line and lands cleanly into the weird zone. It’s not just the nose, either – the tail droops. I saw one of these yesterday and time hasn’t mellowed it one bit. Who signed off on this thing? It makes the slightly awkward SCoupe look almost pretty. By the way, don’t let my rant stop you from posting street finds on Hooniverse – even the weird can be interesting.
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“even the weird can be interesting.”
Here on Hooniverse, “weird” is the whole meaning of interesting.
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I like the Vento in the background too. I live in Korea and the body kits for this model and series II Tibs are amazing. Many on the road too. Very durable cars it seems.
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Sort of waiting for photo evidence here… =8^)
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I always smile woefully whenever I see one of these because it reminds me of my friend who bought one of these, new, for his daughter to take to college. He figured that it was cheap, sporty, and well enough built for her purposes -especially considering their famous 10-year warranty.
He was more than a little annoyed when she drove it home for her Freshman Christmas break. She came roaring up the family drive with a brand-new Juarez-grade-tin fart-can-exhaust and a set of fancy wheels sporting ‘almost-no profile’ PepBoy Tires. Her new college boy/friend had personally sawn off the stainless-steel guaranteed-for-10-years exhaust system -at the header- and tossed in a dumpster, while thoughtfully using her stock tires and wheels on his car as “it needed tires, you see, Dad”. All at Dad’s expense, of course….
http://www.livedownloads.com/labels/gd439965.jpg-
This is why I have personally equipped my daughter’s car with a Juarez grade exhaust and Pep Boys grade tires.
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That front end looks- thanks to turn signals seemingly from a different car- like a cheap and nasty quad light conversion kit.
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That’s my major beef with this generation of Tiburon as well. The front end lacks the coherency of the models that proceeded and followed it.
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Down here it was called Scoupe, and owners refered to it as a Scoupe. So without the Hyundai brandname. Made it even cooler…
It mimivked a Ferrari 456 GT, unsuccessfully. -
This design suggests to me that Hyundai is better off copying others.
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Occasionally on my commute I see a very clean, completely stock yellow one. Its certainly cool in that “you never see those anymore” sort of way.
Therefore, I kind of want it. -
I count two fewer front-facing lights on the Hyundai than on the classic Family Truckster:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/06/000_familytruckster.jpg-
But that grille is more Acura…
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When they were new I always wondered: Who buys these? Hyundai wasn’t really fully established in Jurop yet, and it was such a daring halo car. I mean, they took a decent ground shape for an economic sports car, and someone sneezed some “individual elements” on to it. It’s weird, in a positive but not lovely way. I figure people bought them because there was no Capri or Manta, and hardly any other reason.
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