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Hyundai shocks Korea with mid-engined Veloster concept

There are many things we love here at Autoblog, but one of the quirkiest is the mid-engined hot hatch, whether it's the Renaultsport Clio V6 or the Volkswagen GTI W12-650 concept. Unfortunately, we can never seem to get our hands on one - the former never having made the transatlantic journey and the latter remained strictly a concept. And now we've got one more to salivate over.
It's called, simply enough, the Veloster Midship concept, and Hyundai is unveiling it this week at the Busan Motor Show in South Korea. As you might have guessed, it's essentially a Veloster with the engine - a 2.0-liter Theta turbo four producing 296 horsepower - mounted behind the two seats. It's also got a lightweight aluminum suspension, a reinforced chassis and extreme aero to help that mid-mounted turbo engine do its thing.
The project was undertaken by the same team that developed the initial i20 WRC rally car, but unfortunately as Hyundai itself says in the press release below (released with the solitary image above), "The Midship is a concept only to explore possibilities for the Veloster chassis and is currently not related to any future production model." Which is a bit of a shame, but hardly a surprise.

40+ cars that barely avoid the gas guzzler tax

The Gas Guzzler schedule, with mpg ratings and charges that haven't changed since 1991, lays out which fuel-swillers owe what to Uncle Sam.
I started thinking about the "Gas Guzzler Tax" - considerably less well known as The Energy Tax Act of 1978 - when I was driving Dodge's new Challenger SRT Hellcat last week. Unsurprisingly for a car that can burn 1.5 gallons of gas per minute at max tilt, theoretically able to empty a full tank of premium in about 13 minutes, the Hellcat will be subject to the Gas Guzzler Tax schedule when it goes on sale.

Hyundai sketches out HND-9 luxury sports coupe concept ahead of Seoul

Hyundai has dropped a couple of rendered looks at its forthcoming HND-9 luxury sports coupe concept, which will debut at the 2013 Seoul Motor Show. While full details probably won't be released until then, the Korean automaker has said the butterfly-doored machine will bow with a direct-injection, turbocharged 3.3-liter V6 engine good for around 365 horsepower. The mill is bolted to an eight-speed automatic transmission and puts its grunt to the rear tires. While the doors are pure showcar theater, we dig the Aston-inspired long nose and boisterous rear haunches.
Look for the car to receive an actual introduction on March 28, and while we don't expect to see the HND-9 on showroom floors any time soon, some of the creation's design language may make it to production models. Check out the full press release below.