Hyundai Tiburon V6 Coupé: Improved Style & Performance

Motoring Channel Staff - 27/Mar/2007

Melbourne, Australia — Following previews in Brisbane and Melbourne motor shows, the freshened-for-2007 Tiburon V6 coupé has finally arrived in Hyundai dealer showrooms boasting enhancements to exterior, interior, safety and comfort features and tweaked suspension.

"In the sports car market segment, Tiburon now offers the easiest access to the sleek style and rakish lines of a true coupé — one not derived from any sedan, cabriolet or convertible," said Oliver Mann, Hyundai’s General Manager of Marketing.

"Tiburon’s great looks often see it taken for an Italian prestige GT, such is its visual appeal," Mr Mann said.

Priced from $37,590, the 6-cylinder sports coupe retains its overall silhouette, but as Hyundai explains for 2007 the Tiburon adopts a more assertive air with a new nose, high-riser rear wing and a new design for its 17-inch alloy wheels.

Safety has also been improved, where the 2007 model Tiburon adds ESP and front seat side thorax airbags to its standard dual front airbags, ABS, EBD, front seat belt pre-tensioners and load-limiters among other features.

Cornering is a touch more neutral with less understeer with better damping thanks to new front suspension lower control arms and bushes.

The Tiburon's pollen-filtering air-conditioning is now fully automatic and gains AQS (Air Quality System) which automatically switches to recirculate if it senses overly polluted or pungent outside air. As well as this luxury feature, a new high quality audio system with an integrated auxiliary jack for connecting iPods and MP3 players and other portable audio devices is standard.

"Tiburon now exclusively offers the sleek style and rakish lines of a true coupé — one not derived from any sedan, cabriolet or convertible — for very much less than the $54,000 plus next up in the class,” said Oliver Mann, Hyundai's GM of marketing.

"Tiburon’s great looks often see it taken for an Italian thoroughbred GT, such is its visual appeal," Mr Mann said.

New Style

The styling changes begin with the smoother sculpturing of the Tiburon's engine hood, which highlights new, blister-effect headlight lenses which cover a more projector-look set of quad headlights.

A revised front bumper incorporates a slimmer, letter-box slot upper air intake and a full-width lower grille with two horizontal bars and fog light pods at each side, lending Tiburon a much wider look and presence on the road.

Tiburon’s prominent side crease line now continues forward of the front wheel openings, eyebrowing neat, chrome three-bar vent motifs framing the indicator side repeater lamps. Striking new forked-spoke design alloy 17-inch wheels shod with 215/45 R17 high performance tyres complete Tiburon’s new profile.

From the rear, Tiburon's best angle is even better to behold. A smooth-cut high-riser wing with an integrated LED brake light array now stands astride the tails trailing edge, adding extra stability at highway speeds and replacing the prior low-set spoiler.

Subtly different shape taillights mirror the projector look of the headlights and the new rear bumper is smooth and unadorned save for a lower black central insert which frames new custom chrome dual tail pipes with flat lower sections in line with the bodywork.

More subtle identification at the rear sees the "Hyundai" and "T" badges replaced by a central ‘flying H’ oval logo badge in chrome. The "T" motif is retained on the hood.

Standard exterior colours are solid Shine Red, Continental Silver metallic and mica Stone Black.

New Cabin

Inside, red leather adorns the side bolsters of the Tiburon's heavily contoured front sports seats and rear split seats as well as the front head restraints and door trim insert panels. A cool black textured fabric trims the seats’ centre panels.

Light grey roof lining brightens up the cabin, as does brushed alloy for the steering wheel spoke extremities, door pull handles, centre dash panel, manual shift knob, surrounds for the gearshift boots and a little less around the inboard face air vents — to cut reflections in the windscreen.

Detail upgrades in the centre console include spring-loaded grip lugs for the two cup-holder recesses, a pull-up cover for the adjacent storage slot and an aluminium rather than plastic hinge for the padded elbow rest/bin cover. Above, the sunvisors add pull-out shade extenders to their illuminated, flap-covered vanity mirrors and ticket slots.

Other standard equipment includes cruise control, leather steering wheel rim and auto gearshift knob, engine immobiliser, remote central locking with alarm, electric windows and door mirrors and a trip computer.

The driver’s seat offers adjustable height and lumbar support and the passenger seat has a memory return to its pre-set position after flipping forward for kerbside access to the rear seats. The two rear seat backs split 50/50 and fold forward for that odd extra big load.

Tiburon offers a surprising extra array of clever storage options including an air-con-cooled retractable cup holder, a rubber lift-out sleeved recess for a mobile phone, a roof console with sunglasses holder (and map lights), a lidded centre console bin with special CD stowage, another lidded recess by the right rear seat, a wet lift-out tray in the spare wheel centre and an elasticised luggage net stretched across the now tri-fold floor of the sizeable boot.

The price for succumbing to Tiburon’s temptations starts at just $34,990* for the six-speed manual and $36,780* for the Selectronic sequential clutchless manual-mode automatic, with a factory-fitted power tilt/slide sunroof just $1500 extra.

Limited Blues

The 2007 model Tiburon arrives with a special launch ‘TS’ limited edition finished in a stand-out new Vivid Blue medium metallic and factory-equipped with a power tilt-slide sunroof, black leather interior trim, ‘TS’ badging and monogrammed carpet mats. Tiburon TS will be available at launch nationally for $37,590 for the 6-speed manual and $39,380 for the Selectronic automatic.

Offering a strong and torquey drive, thanks to its 123kW ‘Delta’ all-alloy, 2.7-litre, quad-cam, 24-valve, V6 engine, the Tiburon creates a useful 245Nm of torque. Combined with its relatively low kerb weight of 1388kg, its sharp steering, re-tuned sports suspension and 45 series unidirectional tyres on 17-inch alloys make for a sporty drive.

Tiburon’s six-speed manual transmission has ratios quite closely spaced to deliver agreeably brisk acceleration, and the Tiburon manual can sprint from zero to 100km/h in around 8.2 seconds and can complete the quarter mile (0-400m) in around 15.8 seconds.

Despite its performance credentials, Tiburon V6 is still fuel efficient with the Selectronic automatic rated at just 9.5L/100km of 91 RON ULP on the standard ADR 81/01 city-biased averaged lab cycle, while the more performance-geared 6-speed manual rates at 9.7L/100km.

Underneath the car, there's four-wheel disc brakes, German-tuned all-independent suspension with Sachs gas dampers, MacPherson struts up front, a multi-link arrangement with Chapman struts aft and stabilizer bars front and rear.