ROAD TEST: Hyundai Tucson Sport gets much bigger muscles

South Africa is well known for bringing unique local high performance model derivatives to market.

Now I am sure I am going to forget one or two cars, so please forgive me in advance, but I am sure most of you will remember the likes of the Basil Green Perana V8s, the Chev Firenza Can-Am V8s, then the Alfa Romeo GTV 3.0 V6, the BMW 325is and the Opel Kadett Superboss of many years ago.

These cars were mostly born out of the desire to rule local racetracks as motorsport attracted huge interest and crowds back in the day. And there was a belief that what won on the weekend, sold on the Monday.

Slowly but surely, motorsport started to lose its audience and the lucrative corporate sponsorship money it attracted while becoming part of the global economy and its very strict corporate rules about what you can and can’t do to their cars at the same time.

This said, a few more slightly higher than normal local performance cars still saw the light of day with the likes of the Opel Kadett 200 TS, the Daihatsu Materia Turbo of a few years back, and now in 2017 we have the Hyundai Tucson Sport.

Hyundai SA have taken the normal 1.6 TGDI Tucson and given it a bit of an upgrade in terms of looks and performance.

On the outside you get a body kit that consists of front, rear and side skirts along with 19-inch black alloy wheels and a quad pipe performance exhaust.

One thing is for sure; it looks the part and sounds it too. In fact, the more sensitive motorists amongst us might not enjoy the boom that this system delivers at highway speeds.

But it’s the under-the-skin little electronic improvements to the engine that makes this Tucson Sport so much fun. Power is up from 130kW to 150kW and torque from 265Nm to 295Nm, and while these are not massive gains, they are good enough to see this SUV drill its standard sibling on the road and even go better than what is claimed.

Making use of the slick shifting six-speed manual gearbox and limiting the wheel spin through the front wheels with a bit of finesse will get you to 100km/h in just 8.5 seconds, cross the quarter mile in 16.3 seconds, run the 1km at 179km/h while only stopping the fun at 210km/h.

And I can report that this enhanced performance does not come at the expense of fuel consumption either.

Hyundai claim that you should get 8.9 litres per 100km/h on average, and I returned a very good 9.2 litres per 100km without ever trying to win an economy run.

As a bonus you get an eightinch screen infotainment system with satellite navigation, Bluetooth telephone linking and music streaming, as well as a rear view camera, along with the likes of cruise control, rain sensors for the automatic windscreen wipers, an automatic air-conditioning system, electrically adjusted leather seats and multifunction controls on the steering wheel.

Safety is not neglected either, here you have ESP, ABS, EBD and a full set of airbags. At R499 900 with a seven-year/200 000km warranty and five-year / 90 000km service plan, I really think you would be silly if you don’t go and check out the new Hyundai Tucson Sport when shopping for an SUV that takes the boring out of going to work.