2006 Hyundai Elantra Gls Sedan 4-door 2.0l on 2040-cars

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Dodge, Hyundai crowdsourced-funding sites deemed successes

What's not to love about crowdsourcing? This idea, after all, has given us Kickstarter as well Local Motors, but automakers are starting to use the social platform to sell more cars (or just drum up a little PR). Both Dodge and Hyundai have used "crowd-funding" recently, and while Automotive News is reporting that neither has racked up big sales with this gimmick, both automakers are pleased with the attention.
For Hyundai, it teamed up with website Motozuma.com to help customers crowdsource money for a down payment, and the automaker matched this amount up to $500. Last year, this helped Hyundai sell an extra 1,600 units, a fraction of its total 2012 sales. That figure is far larger than Dodge fared with the Dodge Dart Registry - it netted only two sales and a small number of individual options. This registry did help University of Southern California fraternity crowdsource $18,000 to buy a Dart for a local Meals on Wheels, however. Despite the low sales figures, Dodge and Hyundai are considering their crowdsourcing programs a success since it helped them connect with younger buyers.

Hyundai announces N performance sub-brand at WRC launch

It's been well over a year since Hyundai revealed its initial prototype for the i20 WRC at the 2012 Paris Auto Show. Now it's revealed the final version (pictured above, complete with Shell Helix livery) and it's also announced the full team that will field it next year in the World Rally Championship, including Thierry Neuville and additional drivers Juho Hänninen, Dani Sordo and Chris Atkinson. That's plenty exciting for rally fans, but the news that caught our attention was buried deeper in the press release.
That is the announcement of Hyundai's new N performance sub-brand. Named after the company's R&D facility in Namyang, South Korean, the N brand "will be used to symbolize Hyundai's high performance technology," not just on the rally car but also "future mass-produced high performance cars" for the road. The WRC car wears the logo that we'd expect to represent that new cadre of performance Hyundais.
Having hinted at the emergence of a European performance sub-brand a couple of months ago, the Korean automaker hasn't revealed any further details on which those road cars might be, but promises to transfer lessons it learns from the rally stage to the marketplace. We're looking forward to finding out more, but a roadgoing i20 hot hatch would be a good first bet. Here's hoping the North American product lineup won't be left out.

Hyundai readying Juke rival with 'edgy, dynamic styling' for 2017

Love it or hate it, the Nissan Juke has drawn attention to itself and to its maker. Little wonder, then, that Hyundai wants to follow a similar formula.
According to our compatriots over at Edmunds, Hyundai has a whole raft of new products in the works - as you'd expect from the world's fourth-largest automaker - including replacements for the current Tucson and Elantra sometime next year, but also a subcompact crossover to target the Juke, not to mention tiny softroading rivals like the forthcoming Chevrolet Trax. Details at this point are few and far between, but it appears Hyundai is committed to making it as zany as the Nissan it will target. The Korean automaker revealed the Curb concept (pictured above) along similar lines at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show.
Hyundai Motor America CEO Dave Zuchowski tells Edmunds not to expect a mini Tuscon, but to "Think of maybe something that looks like a Juke or something that has edgy, dynamic styling." Considering how off-the-map Hyundai went with the Veloster and its unconventional array of doors, we know the Korean automaker can think outside the box for this Gen-Y crossover. Whether the edge tiny CUV market has space for more than the Juke, however, is another matter. One way or another, look for the tiny Korean crossover to arrive sometime in 2017.