I’ve started to see a trend on car reviews that seems quite alarming. Things I definitely didn’t notice until I bought the car that I drive every day. When car reviewers complain about the tradeoff between performance vs luxury, I get frustrated because these are not treated with the grain of salt they should be.

If you’re like me, you want a driver’s car. Uncomfortable with unrelenting ass destructive interior, and brute force, it’s a trade of luxury items for pure unbridled performance. First generation Dodge Viper is one of those mythical beasts. Older cars fit the bill sometimes, but in 2019 I found the pepperoni to my cheese. A delicious combination to make the Veloster N this type of car.  

The 2020 Hyundai Veloster N, with most of the base luxury items gone, in trade for locking dif, special Pirelli tires, racing brakes, racing suspension, and an active exhaust. I could’ve gotten a fully loaded model with 201hp, but the 276hp performance package with less weight is more my cup of coffee (I don’t drink tea). I watched reviews about this car religiously before I bought it, and every review starts and ends the same. They say it’s an amazing car, but it has cheap plastics on the dashboard. Nearly every time. I’ll hand it to a few reviewers that immediately discounted the plastic as an issue – understanding what a driver would be getting for the tradeoff. You can’t have both. If car reviewers and focus groups trick Hyundai into adding 3k to the price tag to “fix” this “issue” it would be sacrilege.

I bought this car to support the auto manufactures who are actually building their cars on a mission. I wanted to support Hyundai for ignoring all the lame ass people that want a cheap car to be expensive so it can be more comfortable. Its plenty comfy, and honestly its quite versatile, but asking a company to keep watering down their products is just wrong. Watering down something won’t make it stand out. It doesn’t let you know it’s meant for certain drivers.

If you want a watered-down lame ass piece of driving, most companies have an option for you. So please can we stop focusing on what a sports car can’t do. No ones buying them to be everything, but they are buying them for one reason – and Hyundai hit a homerun with this one. Complain for now, but someday this car will be a memory of a car built the right way, without the use of a focus group stripping away what makes it special.