Hyundai Vision N 74 Takes LA by Storm

Los Angeles, CA -- Whether you consider yourself a car person or not, chances are you know about the DMC DeLorean. It is a pop culture icon thanks to its spot in the Back to the Future film trilogy and as a result may be the most famous car of all time.

Did you know, however, that it owes much of its upbringing to a Hyundai concept first released in 1974? In addition to the Pony concept that debuted that year, there was also a Pony Coupe concept that was a sporty take on the proceedings. While the Pony hatchback made production, the coupe was stillborn due to technological limitations and other extenuating factors, namely Hyundai’s freshness on the market.

“A sports car from a company that has yet to produce a single individual car?” said SangYup Lee, head of Hyundai Design Center. “Not likely.”

So, it never made production – except, it kind of did.

Famed car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro is said to have come across the design and thought something to the effect of “hmm. This looks good. Let’s make something out of it” and so, the DeLorean as we know it was born, and that’s where it ends.

Except, it kind of doesn’t.

Enter the absolutely stunning, spectacular, insert-adjective-here Hyundai N Vision 74 concept, a hydrogen-powered masterpiece that’s all sharp creases, big wings, squinting headlamps and a stance that leaves little to the imagination. Yeah, there’s some DeLorean there – namely the rear side window – but Lee insists that we “don’t say it looks like a DeLorean (because) we did it first!”

That’s fine be me because, this is all silhouette racer. Think of the BMW M1 Procar or Lancia Beta Montecarlo of the early 1980s, an image driven home by the aerodynamic wheels whose hubs recall the cooling fins seen on those aforementioned racers. It should come as little surprise that there’s a massive underbody diffuser as well.

If you were ever to drive one of these, you’d need that aero. The 85 kW fuel cell and 62 kWh battery combine to produce over 671 horsepower and over 664 lb-ft of torque, which leads to a zero-100 km/h time of…well, they haven’t told us yet but it will likely be pretty darn quick. Further, it gets three independent cooling channels for the batteries, fuel cell and EV motor as well as the ability to change power distribution between the left and right rear wheels.

That’s hard to verify, of course; the N 74 is strictly a concept, here to provide a halo of sorts for the Hyundai brand to show just how far they can push their E-GMP EV platform. Indeed, it’s called “Vision” because it represents how Hyundai sees the path to electrification for its N performance brand.

In the meantime, for those looking to see what Hyundai N electric is doing on the production front, look no further than the Ioniq 6 N, due to arrive sometime next year and to electrify the N brand, and bring it to dealerships.