2009 Hyundai Santa Fe Gls Sport Utility 4-door 2.7l on 2040-cars

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Toyota tops Consumer Reports best, worst used car values

We often mock Toyota for building boring, soulless cars, but a new study by Consumer Reports suggests that regardless of whether that's true, the company has some of the best used cars on the market. In its report on used cars from 2004-2013, the Japanese automaker had 11 vehicles among its brands on the list - more than any other automaker.
CR breaks the list down by cost and vehicle size, and Toyota has at least one entry at every price point and in nearly every segment. To score a recommendation, a vehicle had to perform well in the magazine's initial tests and score above-average reliability results. It also tried to only suggest cars with electronic stability control. Of the 28 recommended vehicles, Honda/Acura had the second most mentions at six, and Ford, Hyundai and Subaru managed two each.
The Detroit brands also made it to the list, but not in a positive way. Consumer Reports compiled a list of 22 vehicles it wouldn't recommend because "they have multiple years of much-worse-than-average overall reliability." General Motors had the most unrecommended models on the list at six, but Chrysler and Ford weren't far behind, with five cars each from their brands not making the grade. The full list of recommendations is available on CR's website.

IED PassoCorso concept is a student-designed Hyundai we can get behind

Sometimes the best ideas come from fresh eyes, and a group of design students from Istituto Europeo di Design - better known as IED - are out to prove that sentiment with this striking Hyundai PassoCorto concept. This two-seat thesis project of the Master of Arts in Transportation Design program for the Turin, Italy school will be officially unveiled at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show beginning March 4.
The concept is said to be 161 inches long, 74 inches wide and 45.7 inches tall. It rides on a 96.5-inch wheelbase, which makes sense since passo corto means "short wheelbase" in Italian. The engine is tipped to be a mid-mounted, twin-turbo, 1.6-liter four-cylinder pumping out 266 horsepower. Judging by these images, we think the design looks fantastic, with all those sharp lines and creases drawing to a point in the rear. It shows a wonderful balance of being wild enough to draw attention, yet it almost looks realistic enough for the road.
The styling comes from 16 IED students coordinated by Luca Borgogno, lead designer for fabled Italian design house Pininfarina. The students were given a design brief by Hyundai to create a vehicle aimed at young, connected people like them. All of the students submitted a proposal, and two were selected to be merged together in a final look. The entire class contributed to bringing the design to full scale. Scroll down to get the full scoop on the little sports car concept.

Hyundai teases updated Equus before Big Apple debut

The digital ink has yet to dry on some of our Geneva Motor Show coverage, and we're already shifting gears getting ready for the New York Auto Show. To help get us in the New York state of mind, Hyundai has released this shadowy image hinting at the refreshed 2014 Equus that it will be unveiling at the end of the month at NYC's Javits Center.
While we can't make out any major changes in this single image, Hyundai promises at least 30 updates to its flagship sedan including improvements to styling, cabin materials and ride and handling as well as advancements in advanced safety features and "driver technology displays." If we had to guess, the latter sounds like it might be something along the lines of a digital, reconfigurable gauge cluster. The only major difference we can actually see in this image are the new multi-spoke wheels, but we're sure Hyundai will be dropping some more hints before the official introduction on March 27.