Hyundai's Wild Elantra N TCR Edition Is Built For The Racetrack

The Elantra N is special because it isn't. It's an affordable, quick enthusiast's car that makes no compromises in the way it drives, and you can order it with a manual transmission. What's more, you can simply walk into a dealership and buy one. Taking inspiration from the touring car racer Hyundai fields in the American SRO Series, the new Elantra N TCR Edition takes some of the car's track-specific upgrades, like its Boeing-sized wing, and gifts them to the street car.

Hyundai Will Sell You This Wild Special Edition N Car

Setting aside the massive carbon fiber wing for a moment, there are other performance upgrades worth mentioning, and some that the TCR will go without. The latter means a lack of updates to the car's engine, which will churn out the same 276 hp and 289 lb-ft of torque as the regular N. However, the former also means new 19-inch forged wheels. Forging a wheel means it's generally lighter, and that should be the case here, too, though Hyundai doesn't explicitly say so.

There are also new brakes with N Performance calipers. This should be a meaningful upgrade over the stock units, and brakes are certainly one of the first pain points you'll want to address if you start tracking your car. Stock factory brakes, even on performance cars like this, are a compromise between quiet, all-weather braking performance needed for street use and the high-temperature, high-performance demands of track driving. These ought to tip the scales in the right direction. Turning back to the carbon wing, it'll feature multiple adjustment points for optimized downforce, so you can tweak the setup to your liking depending on the race track.

N TCR Edition Updates Continue Inside

Some light changes are applied to the inside of TCR Edition models as well. These include an Alcantara-wrapped wheel, special TCR bading, and more Performance Blue accents. That's the color of the car pictured here, and the hue has become something of a mascot for Hyundai's N cars, which are almost always featured in the color. This car features the N's 8-speed automatic transmission, but it isn't clear if Hyundai will sell a six-speed version, too. It should, of course.

The TCR Edition will go to market in South Korea first. However, it'll come to the US next year, per Motor1, who spoke with a Hyundai spokesperson to confirm. However, pricing isn't known yet. It'll certainly be more expensive than the current most expensive version, the DCT-equipped Elantra N, which starts at $36,600. We're also due an updated Elantra N soon, and the TCR Edition may be serving as a sort of send-off for the model's first generation while a new one looms.