Stunning Hyundai N Vision 74 Is a Wild ‘Rolling Lab’

Few of us who grew up within the ’80s—or some other decade—would disagree with Dr. Emmett Brown’s introduction of the DeLorean DMC-12 in Back to the Future: “The way I see it, if you’re going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?”

Now we all know that the identical precept holds true for future-looking hydrogen fuel-cell demonstrators. Hyundai’s N Vision 74 “rolling lab” would not simply bear a passing resemblance to the stance and proportions of the DeLorean, it really has a real, if distant, connection to the stainless steel sports activities automobile.

This hydrogen-fuel-cell/electrical hybrid sports-car idea set the automotive web alight when it was first proven a few months in the past. The N Vision 74 demonstrated Hyundai’s continued dedication to hydrogen energy by means of the mix of a 670-hp powertrain and what these early pictures steered was the flexibility to generate spectacular drift angles. Now we have had the prospect to drive an engineering prototype, and we will verify that the N Vision 74 has each celebrity presence within the flesh and the flexibility to smoke its rear tires. This is the form of future we will all get behind.

Sadly, there aren’t any plans to place the N Vision 74 into manufacturing—the drivable model was created principally to assist Hyundai study extra about what the corporate calls a “virtual differential”—two separate 335-hp motors with no bodily connection between them energy its rear wheels. Nor, it seems, is the engineering automobile really a Hyundai beneath.

“It’s a [Kia] Stinger,” Albert Biermann tells C/D with a broad grin. The 66-year-old German left BMW’s M Division to turn out to be Hyundai-Kia’s R&D boss and likewise based Hyundai’s N Division. Although he is now retired from that job, he nonetheless works for the group below the far-ranging job description of govt technical advisor. It’s a job that, clearly, offers him the flexibility to make PR executives squirm as he heads off the official script. “The design came much later, and the whole idea started off with a different brand, it wasn’t an N thing at all, it was for the luxury brand [Genesis]. But then we said, ‘This is a lot of complicated stuff,’ so we had to build a mecha-proto—which is what we call a prototype built on an existing car—and then apply the new systems. We realized the Stinger was closest in terms of size.”

Four of those Stinger-based prototypes had been constructed, every with the 85-kW fuel-cell stack from the prevailing Hyundai Nexo along with a high-performance 62.4-kWh battery pack. As 85 kilowatts interprets into 114 horsepower, these numbers clarify that the hydrogen stack is not straight offering the facility required by the high-output motors; slightly, it’s appearing as an on-board charger to increase vary. Hyundai quotes a determine of about 370 miles from the mix of a totally recharged battery pack and the 9.3 kilos of hydrogen the dual rear tanks can retailer.

The determination to show one of many prototypes into the N Vision 74 got here later, and the idea’s bodywork entails a deep dive into Hyundai’s earliest historical past. Lee SangYup, govt vp of design, led the challenge. He’s a person with loads of expertise in the case of styling muscular coupes. Before becoming a member of Hyundai, he was liable for each the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro and the attractive Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6 idea from 2015. As its identify suggests, the N Vision 74 takes its inspiration from the Nineteen Seventies, when Hyundai commissioned Giorgetto Giugiaro to create a coupe model of the corporate’s first independently produced automobile, the Pony hatchback. The consequence had a lot of the wedgy kind widespread to his extra well-known designs from the identical period—however in all probability the closest resemblance to the Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint and the 1970 Porsche Tapiro idea.

The Pony Coupe did not make manufacturing. The fledgling firm had extra pressing wants than a halo coupe and, as Lee admits, “We didn’t have an engine or suspension that could match the design.” The challenge was dropped, however the authentic tooling blueprints stayed within the firm archives—and Giugiaro used them as the start line for what grew to become the DeLorean DMC-12, albeit with the addition of gullwing doorways. And though formally impressed by the Pony Coupe, there’s something unarguably DeLorean-ish in regards to the N Vision 74’s profile and the darkish fascia bar the place the pixel headlamps are positioned. Lee has one request, although: that we do not name it the “Seventy-four.” “It sounds much better in Korean: Chilsib Sa,” he says.

We begin out within the passenger seat on the Bilster Berg observe in northwest Germany, a demanding and closely graded personal driving circuit constructed on the positioning of a one-time munitions depot. Having negotiated the roll cage and strapped ourselves into the racing bucket seat, it is potential to see among the Stinger that also lurks within the dashboard structure. We set off, and really shortly it turns into clear that this isn’t a type of fragile idea vehicles that have to be handled with child gloves. Project engineer (and novice racer) Jonghyuk Kwon demonstrates each the 74’s capability to generate uncomfortable g-loadings and substantial drift angles on lots of Bilster Berg’s turns.

Our drive is much less spectacular. Hyundai’s want to guard this vastly costly one-off implies that the traction management has been switched again on. The N Vision 74 feels at the very least as quick as its official claimed quantity—a sub-four-second 60-mph time, in line with Hyundai. Its accelerator response is searingly direct, and, not like vehicles that flip their motors straight from a gasoline cell, there is no such thing as a sense of output slackening because the stack struggles to maintain up with demand. In the N Vision acceleration feels relentless, and because the speedometer streaks previous 88 mph, we’re half anticipating to out of the blue be transported to 1955.

Sitting on street-spec Pirelli P Zero 4S tires and weighing round two tons, the N Vision struggled somewhat below braking—the pedal feels wood, and stopping distances into Bilster Berg’s slower turns had been somewhat longer than anticipated. But in corners it was impressively keen to vary path and located spectacular adhesion, particularly when it got here to traction in tighter turns. Despite the dearth of any bodily connection between the rear wheels (and the quantity of torque going to every), responses felt an identical to these of a automobile with a standard differential. And it stayed equally pure even when, with the traction management within the extra permissive Sport setting, we had been in a position to intentionally push the rear tires into mild, progressive breakaway. The hydrogen powertrain is perhaps the headline grabber, however the invisible cleverness of the demonstrator’s lively methods is essentially the most spectacular factor about the best way it drives.

While Hyundai stays dedicated to creating hydrogen-powered future fashions alongside EVs, not one of the purchasable ones appear more likely to be retro-inspired coupes. “Will the time come for us to bring this to a customer?” Biermann asks, rhetorically. “It is hard for me to see us doing it; at this moment we don’t need such a car.”

A conventional electrical model could be simpler to create and nonetheless be in step with the forward-looking ethos, however the N Vision 74’s smooth, low strains would not work with Hyundai’s Electric Global Modular Platform, which makes use of an underfloor battery pack. “Sure, we could make a new battery in a different format,” Biermann says. “Anything is possible. But we would need to spend a huge amount to do so.”

There will probably be loads of fascinating, purchasable vehicles in Hyundai’s future, together with the forthcoming Ioniq 5 N EV, which guarantees Porsche Taycan-rivaling efficiency. Sadly, the N Vision 74 would not look set to turn out to be certainly one of them.