Supercar performance at an attainable price isn’t a fantasy
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00:00This
00:25is a C8 Corvette, that's a Hyundai Ioniq 5, and on paper, these cars don't really make
00:31a lot of sense, and this is not our traditional motor trend comparison, Scott, but why are
00:35we doing this?
00:36Imagine this, right?
00:37We like to dream about Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but we can't afford those.
00:41$70,000 is a number we can aspire to.
00:43We could maybe save up and get there, and for $70,000, you could have traditional performance
00:49Corvette, V8, basically a supercar.
00:53American muscle.
00:54Exactly.
00:55Or, you could have this SUV, tall hatchback, electric, it's 600 horsepower, and it's even
01:02track ready, so what gets you the most smiles for your dollar?
01:06That's a question that we're here to find out, whether it's your traditional coupe, supercar,
01:11sports car, or something that's new, different, fun, futuristic, but they are both bringing
01:17you fun behind the wheel.
01:19And for $70,000, what's more fun to drive?
01:22That's what we're here to find out.
01:40All right, here we go.
01:42So, the thing I love about the Corvette, you know, 490 horsepower, 465 pound-feet of torque,
01:49rear-wheel drive, you know, you're sitting low to the ground, there's this massive sound
01:55coming from the back of your head, right?
01:58I mean, it's just so much fun.
02:00Well, and what's really great is, right, this is just the base one.
02:03This is the LT1, nothing special, no performance options on it at all, and it's still a really
02:09good sports car, right out of the box.
02:11This is totally fun to drive, even without the limited-slip differential, and the performance
02:16exhaust, and the extra big brakes, and more power, and everything else, like, it's just
02:21already great.
02:22It's good for the money, there's nothing out there, if you're looking for a sports car
02:29like this.
02:30You know, as far as how engaging it is to drive, this is the pinnacle of that.
02:35Yeah, absolutely, I mean, that's why it was our 2020 Car of the Year, and three years
02:39later, it was our 2023 Performance Vehicle of the Year.
02:43Corvettes are just super fun to drive, and they give you so much of that supercar look
02:50and feel, and even driving experience out of the engines in the back, for, again, starting
02:57at $70,000.
02:58Yeah, yeah.
02:59That's the crazy part about this, is that, you know, there's no other car in the world
03:05that's mid-engine for $70,000, right?
03:09And I mean, it's a bargain.
03:12As far as going, you know, performance per dollar kind of thing, it's just ridiculous.
03:17Well, it's incredible what it can do, right?
03:19Like, without all the performance packages, just a base car like this still does 0-60
03:24in 3.3 seconds in our testing.
03:28That's still crazy quick.
03:29Yeah.
03:31It still does, you know, big numbers on the skid pad, and we're having a great time right
03:36now with it.
03:37Like, yeah, you could spend a lot more money and get a much faster one that pulls even
03:42bigger numbers, but like, how many much, how much bigger numbers do you really need?
03:47Absolutely.
03:49And then, you know, it comes to how it drives, right?
03:52On a road like this, on a twisty road like this, it's natural habitat.
03:57It's where it's going to shine the most.
03:59It's so much lighter than the IONIQ 5, right?
04:02Like you said, 1,300 pounds lighter than the IONIQ 5N, right?
04:07And the steering is going to feel lighter and more precise.
04:10That's exactly.
04:11You feel it in the front end of the car, especially.
04:13The steering, I mean, the steering on the Hyundai is good, but like, this car turns
04:17in so sharply.
04:19It feels light and nimble.
04:20The braking feels really strong and immediate, even, and these are just on the basic standard
04:25brakes, not the big brake package or anything.
04:27It still feels really great.
04:29You know, it's what you would expect out of a Porsche car.
04:34And at this dual clutch transmission, I mean, I put it right up there with the Porsche PDK
04:39in how it knows exactly when to shift, exactly what gear you want, when you want it.
04:45You can drive it all day without ever using the paddle shifters, or you can use them and
04:49have all the fun you want, but like, it is absolutely perfect just out of the box.
04:56Yeah.
04:57Like you said, you know, it just like knows exactly what RPM it needs to shift, up or
05:02down too.
05:03Right.
05:04And the shifts are smooth.
05:05You know, sometimes we want to feel like the little bump.
05:08Some people like that.
05:09Yeah.
05:10Right.
05:11Some people like that.
05:12Yeah.
05:13The kick.
05:14But, you know, here are pretty smooth overall.
05:15Right.
05:16Oh, perfect.
05:17You know, I think that's also so cool about this Corvette is that, you know, it is, yes,
05:21it is a sports car.
05:22It's something that's going to shine on a road like this, but also it's very livable,
05:26right?
05:27Like you can drive it every day.
05:28Didn't you drive one for a full year?
05:29Yeah.
05:30I mean, it's something that's not going to like tire you out, you know, wear you out.
05:36I mean, well, and that one had the adaptive dampers, the MagneRide suspension, and this
05:41one doesn't.
05:42But this still rides really good.
05:43This is fine.
05:44Like I have no complaints about the way this car rides, again, great out of the box.
05:48And I'm sure, you know, like maybe, you know, riding as low to the ground as we are right
05:53now, it's not like the most comfortable sitting position and, you know, visibility might not
05:57be the best and all of that.
05:59But you know, those are the things that come with a sports car, right?
06:02Like when you're going to make a decision and go for a sports car, those are the things
06:05that, you know, you're going to have to stick with, right?
06:09And it gives you that sensation of speed, though, too, right?
06:11Like it feels like we're two inches off the ground right now.
06:13We are down here in it.
06:14It really like sets the mood and makes every, you know, turn feel kind of fun.
06:19Absolutely.
06:20Yeah.
06:21And I think, too, that the car isn't perfect, right?
06:24Like, yeah, you could spend more money and have more performance, right?
06:27You can't really see super well out of it.
06:30That's part of the deal.
06:32And it drives the way it drives.
06:36It's engaging, but it's kind of it does a Corvette thing.
06:41And that's it.
06:42And if you love that, then perfect.
06:43You're good to go.
06:45Let's talk about this V8 engine, because, man, the way, you know, just having it behind
06:53your head, it's just, you know, it just makes the whole experience better.
06:57Right.
06:58Also, as far as like balancing the car out, there is, you know, there's obviously this
07:03is a rear wheel drive plus rear engine.
07:06So it's just, you know, the power is just all back there.
07:10And I don't know, launching it, launching the car just feels so, so good.
07:15The cool thing about this engine is like being a big displacement V8 has a lot of torque
07:19and has a lot of torque at all RPM, it feels like, especially for a gas powered engine
07:25like this, like you can just dig out in any gear like you don't have to be shifting all
07:31the time, which is kind of a double edged sword, right?
07:34Like on the one hand, it's great that this thing always has power to go.
07:39But then if you're using the paddle shifters while on a road like this, we're not changing
07:43gears very often, like you don't need to.
07:46So some of that like driver engagement of changing your own gears and things, and this
07:52happens in manual transmission cars too, sometimes we're like, you just kind of end up in third
07:56or fourth.
07:57Yeah.
07:58Yeah.
07:59Now here you can leave it honestly leave it in automatic all the time and it will do its
08:02thing just fine.
08:03Right?
08:04Right.
08:05And you're good.
08:06Like I said, you're not doing that many more shifts, unless you want to.
08:09Yeah.
08:10Yeah.
08:11So it's like, just raise the bar in terms of what you can do in terms of performance
08:16for the money.
08:17Right?
08:18We didn't have that before.
08:19The Corvette before the C8, the C7 Corvette wasn't like that.
08:22Right?
08:23I mean, I mean, it was good, but it wasn't this good.
08:25No, no, no, no.
08:26This car really like completed the whole package.
08:29And it gave you like the exotic bits to that, you know, you never quite had before, you
08:35know, putting the engine behind the seats, like makes this feel like you're, you know,
08:41you'll be talked about in the same sentence as supercars from, from Europe, but you can
08:48still get this one at a price that you and I could, you know, maybe someday aspire to
08:54being able to afford.
08:55Absolutely.
08:56Absolutely.
08:57We were talking earlier about the livability of the car, how comfortable is it to drive
09:01every day?
09:02And, you know, two seater cars are usually not the most comfort ones, right?
09:06I mean, sitting here, yeah, the cabin does feel compact, but you don't have a lot of
09:11cool options, right?
09:12Like there's Apple CarPlay, all the buttons are like easy to reach everything, like, you
09:17know, there's a digital driver's display that has cool graphics, right?
09:20Like there's all these little things, there's this cool mirror that you can flip it off
09:24and then you have a camera display instead of having the mirror being displayed, right?
09:28So like all these technologies that just make your day a little bit easier.
09:34And you know, it's just a part of like the things that you may not be appreciative of
09:39every day, but once you use them, you, it's just, you know, they just make your day better.
09:44Well, I'll tell you too, like this, they all come with this camera in the nose and man,
09:49if you drive a car that's low to the ground, like being able to see exactly how close you
09:53are to the curb or the parking stop, like it's a simple thing, but it's a really nice
09:57thing to have.
09:58So you don't crunch the nose of your car just trying to park it regular basis.
10:03And I will say all these things that you just talked about are all right for the driver.
10:09We'll say as a passenger over here, like I am a little like boxed in by the like giant
10:15like ridge of buttons here.
10:17And this screen is absolutely like pointed at you.
10:19So like if I want to change the volume, like I get to like, my seatbelt just locked up.
10:23I got to like lean forward here to just to change the volume or some things, but it's
10:28very much like this car is for the driver.
10:30Yeah.
10:31Yeah.
10:32It's a driver's car.
10:33Right.
10:34I mean, I still, I still say if you just took any person off the street and you put them
11:03in this car right now with the sound on and with the paddle shifting on, they would, you
11:09could convince them that they were just in a hot hatch SUV, whatever this is, powered
11:17by an internal combustion engine.
11:21I mean, it's just crazy how real the sound is, you know, the experience, the whole experience,
11:28you get the kick, you get, you get the audible and feeling experience like this is louder
11:35than in the Corvette.
11:36Yeah.
11:37You know?
11:38And in the Corvette, we have the engine behind our heads here.
11:42There's no engine.
11:43I mean, there's an electric motor, right?
11:45But there's this audio coming from the speakers where it just makes it seem so real.
11:52Well, and here's what makes this car even more fun.
11:56I grant you, it's a little silly, but it's also, I think, fun is I can just push this.
12:03Now it's like cyberpunk, Tron, I don't know what you call it.
12:10Then there's my favorite, which is, it's so silly, but I love it.
12:18They really, they wanted to call it Maverick, but they weren't sure if they could get the
12:21licensing, I'll figure it out.
12:23So they just called it supersonic, but it's supposed to sound like you're in Top Gun.
12:26No, this is great.
12:27I mean, it's, you know, like you said, it's silly, but I have to give it to Hyundai.
12:36There's innovation behind it, right?
12:39It's made well also, right?
12:40Like it doesn't, it may have a little bit of a fake sound, but it's all like realistic.
12:45Like you're living the moment and everything is happening as you go, right?
12:51It's just so much fun.
12:53And like, because it's all digital, it's all just software.
12:57You can just make a new one, like they could put out one tomorrow that makes it sound just
13:02like the Corvette, or they could make it sound even more like a spaceship or anything in
13:07between.
13:08These are just the first three that they came up with.
13:11I love that even when it's idling, idling, right?
13:15It's actually like, you can actually see the, the tack kind of like idling, the tack needle
13:20idling, right?
13:21You can hear it like it's idling.
13:23I mean, it's, it's just ridiculous.
13:25Right.
13:26If you go back to the like engine sounds right here, yeah, like the tack needle moves, it
13:32revs up and it'll even hit a rev limiter.
13:35Like, how'd you get the kick and everything, you know?
13:39Yeah, like they intentionally disrupt the acceleration so that you get the kick or you
13:44get the stop like from the rev limiter, like, and yeah, all this is kind of just for fun.
13:49You can use this to change the way you drive the car.
13:53Like right now I'm using the paddle shifter.
13:55So when I pull a downshift, like we get some more resistance.
13:59It's like changing down a gear in your car.
14:02It changes the weight balance from the rear to the front.
14:05Like you can actually use that if you want to, if you want to drive the car like that.
14:09The Hyundai engineers just came up with this brilliant idea of making it more fun, more
14:14adding more personality to it.
14:16And I think the result is fantastic.
14:18And we started this all, the whole question of this, right, is smiles per dollar.
14:23And like, look at all the stuff you can do with this car for the money.
14:27Yeah, these fun things we've been talking about, but like I can also go over here and
14:31change the lockup on the electric limited slip differential.
14:36I can change the steering weight.
14:37I can change the, how, you know, which power is going into the motors, the suspension,
14:43what noise is, how loud the noise are, like you can make all kinds of adjustments to this
14:47car just like as a, you know, out of the box, like you don't have to pay extra for
14:56any of that.
14:57Like there's kind of really only one trim level for this car and it's everything.
15:01You know, things that I don't like about it.
15:03There's a lot of things I do like about it, but I don't like that everything is done through
15:07the screen, right?
15:09I mean, here we are in a winding road, you know, and you're going to have to go through
15:13the screen and going through menus and everything, and it's not ideal, right?
15:17That is true.
15:18Like there's only two buttons here that you can like, you can customize them, but some
15:21of these things you still have to go into the screen to change even with the customizing
15:25and that's not ideal.
15:27But honestly, other than that, I mean, we're just sitting here laughing, smiling, you know,
15:33having fun, thinking how ridiculous this is, you know, it's also very well planted.
15:40You know, it's, we said earlier, it's 1300 pounds more than the Corvette and you do feel
15:47that on the turns, right?
15:48Like I mean, it sticks to the ground.
15:51That's the thing.
15:52It's kind of a plus and a minus, right?
15:53On the plus side, your center of gravity is super low, like even lower than the Corvette
15:58and that makes it feel super planted and handle much better than it would otherwise.
16:04So that's great.
16:05But on the other hand, like this car is doing a lot of things to trick Isaac Newton, but
16:09you can't hide 1300 pounds of weight.
16:12Like we can feel it when we go in this corner right here, like the front end is responsive,
16:17but it's not as crisp as the Corvette and when you step on the brakes, this technically
16:22stops shorter in a, you know, emergency stop than the Corvette does, but it doesn't feel
16:29as quite as confident because it's got so much more weight, it's got to slow down.
16:34So you do feel the difference, but then you weigh that against like everything else this
16:37car does and how well it like hides that mass most of the time and all the tricks that
16:43it does.
16:44And you're kind of like, well, okay, yeah, it's, it's heavier, but how much do I really
16:48care?
16:49Yeah.
16:50Yeah.
16:51Yeah.
16:52Yeah.
16:53You know, we should talk about like how much power this thing makes, right?
16:55And what is powering it to two?
16:57So two electric motors, one in the front, one in the rear, and then over 600 horsepower,
17:02600 horsepower, 617 pounds of torque.
17:05Like this thing is quicker to 60 than the Corvette is.
17:11It stops better.
17:12Like it does all these things that you would have to pay a bunch of extra money in order
17:17to like match in the Corvette.
17:20This is the fastest SUV we've tested at Motor Trend.
17:24It's just ridiculous.
17:25Right?
17:26Like, I mean, I'm burning out of the words to describe it because it's just, it's just
17:31so much fun and just like, you know, unbelievable what they have done with it.
17:35Well, and we talked about in the Corvette that it's got so much torque, right?
17:38That you can dig out in any gear, it'll get up and go.
17:42And as good as it is, like you just cannot compare that to what electric motors can do.
17:47Because this thing has all the torque at any motor speed.
17:52So you step on the pedal on this and it's going to take off harder than the Corvette
17:57does.
17:58And you especially get it when you come out of corners, right?
18:00Because it's got that front motor that's helping pull the front end out and it's got
18:04all the torque.
18:05It just takes off out of a corner in a way that the Corvette being rear drive and naturally
18:12aspirated and just not having 100 and something less pound-feet of torque just cannot do even
18:18though it's lighter.
18:19Yeah.
18:20There's no hesitation from it.
18:21It just goes.
18:22And that's not to say the Corvette's bad.
18:23It's just this does even more than what the Corvette can do for the same money or even
18:29actually a little bit less money, technically.
18:30Yeah, like three grand less, right?
18:32Yeah.
18:33The ride, I think it is very comfortable.
18:37It is planted, right?
18:39It is very good body control.
18:42So it blends very well the comfortability, the livability part, and then also the performance
18:49part with it, right?
18:51Yeah, totally.
18:52I mean, it's a bit stiffer than the Corvette, not gonna lie.
18:56It's not quite as plush as that one.
18:59But it's not super hard like other N cars have been in the past.
19:04So it's kind of a compromise there, but it's still very livable.
19:08And there's three different levels.
19:09You can change it to this comes with adaptive dampers that you have to pay extra for on
19:14the Corvette.
19:15So you can just knock it down into, you know, the most comfortable setting and go about
19:19your day.
19:20Yeah.
19:21It is a very different experience in this car, though, right?
19:23It is low-ish to the ground, but we're sitting much taller, more upright, the ceiling is
19:31much higher, the windshield is more upright.
19:34It's a very different feel from the Corvette.
19:37But when you get into a corner, it's just as much fun.
19:41And maybe it's a little different kind of fun because it comes out of that corner different.
19:45It does different things, but it puts just as big of a smile on my face.
19:48Oh, yeah.
19:50You know, just I think it just impresses more whoever's riding with you in the car.
19:54They're just, you know, going to be more amazed about the things that you can do with it than
19:59the things that you can do in the Corvette, right?
20:01Right.
20:02Because it's like unexpected, like, you know, I don't know, it's just like surreal.
20:08This is a new innovative way of just showing what you can do with EVs and be not trying
20:16to copycat anybody.
20:17Right.
20:18This is its own thing.
20:19This is what it's supposed to be.
20:20Well, after a full day of driving both of these cars on Canyon Roads, it's time for
20:32a decision.
20:33Scott, both of these cars are equally as fun, right?
20:36Like they have both their own personality.
20:38They're very different, like we found out.
20:40But my gosh, are they fun on these driving roads?
20:42Yeah.
20:43And I mean, that just makes me want to say one more time, I mean, I just forgot how good
20:48a standard Corvette is.
20:50I mean, with no performance options on it at all, this car was still really fun out
20:54here in the corners.
20:55I mean, no performance package, but you have a V8 that's super powerful right off the
20:59bat.
21:00You have a dual clutch transmission that's, you know, very lively and super well tuned.
21:04You're sitting low to the ground.
21:06You have that sports car feel the moment you sit in it.
21:09It's as close to perfection as you can get with a $70,000 supercar.
21:13Right.
21:14I mean, talk about a performance value.
21:16But this is also an incredible performance value.
21:19I mean, this has a hundred more horsepower and it costs three grand less to get 7,000
21:24bucks.
21:25Yeah.
21:26It's quicker.
21:27It stops better.
21:28It handles amazing.
21:29I mean, it's very different, but it also has a lot of these special quirks to it, right?
21:33These gimmicks, if you want to call them that.
21:35They were fun.
21:36They were silly.
21:37They made us smile and laugh.
21:38And we had such a good time playing with all these features that it had.
21:42You know, when technology brings that sort of excitement to a vehicle like the IONIQ
21:465N, I'm all for it.
21:48You know, I mean, this just enhances that sort of like performance and engagement that
21:53you have behind the wheel, right?
21:55And anybody riding with you is going to have that same kind of feeling too, because this
21:59is a car that's going to entertain every single occupant, including the driver.
22:03And in a time when we're told that EVs don't have any personality, the IONIQ 5N proves
22:08everybody wrong.
22:09Absolutely.
22:10This car shows you exactly how much personality you can get for $70,000, and that's why it's
22:15our winner.