SEOUL: Hyundai has introduced two new concepts at the 2015 Seoul Motor Show: the RM15 and the Enduro CUV. And they couldn’t be more different. One is a slightly unhinged two-seater Veloster that thinks it’s a racing car, the other is a more realistic C-segment SUV study.
You might recall the mid-engined Veloster RM concept, revealed last year at the Busan motor show in South Korea. Hyundai clearly considered it unfinished business, because it’s had another go at the same brief.
It’s no standard Veloster. Carbon-fibre reinforced plastic body panels clad an aluminium spaceframe structure, saving around 195kg compared with a regular steel construction, a weight saving that sees the RM15 make it from 0 to 62mph in 4.7 seconds. Aerodynamic modifications have also played a big role in the redesign, so the car incorporates new vertical air-intake slots in the flanks and along the rear wheelarches for increased cooling.
The RM15 keeps the same mid transverse engine configuration, so the 300bhp 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine nestles behind the front seats and drives the rear wheels through a six-speed manual transmission.
A Clio V6 spiritual successor coming to a trackday near you soon? Nice idea, but Hyundai says the RM15 is simply a demonstration of what its engineers can achieve and won’t be going any further. However, the company promises ‘other exciting prototype projects’ in the near future.
Named after, and supposedly inspired by, enduro motorcycles, this is Hyundai’s latest take on a mid-sized SUV or, as it prefers to call it, a CUV (Crossover Utility Vehicle).
The exterior wears its rally motorcycle influences in the form of enormous plastic wheelarch cladding and plenty of aluminium garnish and inside, the steering wheel is intended to represent a motorcycle’s handle moulding and the door handles bear the cowl image of an enduro motorbike.
By that logic the engine ought to be a 250cc two-stroke, but the Hyundai Enduro’s powertrain instead consists of a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine and seven-speed dual clutch transmission. Without a kickstart.
