Car Review: 2011 Hyundai Sonata

By Tom Lankard of NewCarTestDrive.com

The 2011 Hyundai Sonata is an all-new midsize sedan, completely redesigned and re-engineered. The 2011 Sonata comes a wide range of models, including a hybrid that can be driven at highway speeds in fully electric mode, and a turbo designed to deliver fuel-efficient acceleration performance.

The new Sonata Hybrid features a full parallel hybrid system allowing the car to be driven in zero emissions, fully electric drive mode at speeds up to 62 miles per hour or in blended gas-electric mode at any speed. The new Sonata 2.0T, meanwhile, uses a four-cylinder turbocharged engine that gets an EPA-estimated 33 mpg Highway rating while boasting 274 horsepower and on Regular gas. The 2011 Sonata lineup starts with the Sonata GLS, which retails for less than $20,000 and delivers more power than other cars in its class. No V6 is offered, as Hyundai is using turbocharged four-cylinders and battery assist motors to increase power.

A four door, midsize sedan that accommodates five passengers, the Sonata competes with Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Chevrolet Malibu, Ford Fusion, and Nissan Altima, to name a few.

Buyers need not be limited to those seeking a daily commuter, either. The Hybrid covers the need for green-ness and the Sonata SE actually is fun to drive, especially the 2.0T, while the GLS handles interstates with ease and the Limited brings luxury. Hyundai has tuned the suspension calibrations differently for the different models, so each has its own character.

The all-new, 2011 Hyundai Sonata is classed as a midsize sedan but it’s large by those standards. Measured by total enclosed space, it just sneaks in at the bottom of the large sedan class.

Hyundai’s designers throw around phrases like fluidic sculpture design language and monoform side profile in describing the new styling. They say their goal was to design a car that no one could say, looks like brand X. As to the former, the word busy seems apt in describing the Sonata’s styling cues. And as to the latter, observers should be forgiven if on catching sight of the new Sonata their first thought is of one of those cars that wear the three pointed star emblem. This isn’t to say the Sonata’s looks aren’t striking or pleasant, because neither is true. It’s just that neither are they necessarily unique.

The front end on all but the Hybrid stays with a pinched nose look echoing that of the Hyundai Genesis Coupe. Sculpted creases flowing forward and inward from the A-pillars (the windshield’s side frames) draw the eye to the grin like grille and the outsized Hyundai logo. Headlight housings start at the outer edges of the grille and wrap around the front fenders beyond the leading arch of the wheelwell, visually lessening the front overhang. The lower fascia sports a wide mouth air intake flanked by squinting recesses for the uplevel fog lights.

The Hybrid’s forward territory shows much of the same shapes and sculpting but gets an entirely different and quite striking grille treatment, an oversized, hexagonal opening split by an oversized horizontal bar. Hyundai wants no one to miss that this Sonata is something special. The Hybrid’s headlights make a similar statement, highlighted with a string of LED running lights laced around the projector beam lenses.

From the rear, quite frankly, the Sonata could be a top of the line Lexus or Mercedes Benz, save, of course, for the Hyundai flying H logo. It’s an elegant look, with understated taillights, minimalist chrome bar topping the license plate indent and a lower bumper element that mirrors the lower front fascia, even to the reflectors framed to match the front fog lights.

With the 2011 Sonata, Hyundai takes another major step along the path it has laid out for itself in the U.S. market. This is a high quality sedan, in all of its iterations, with remarkably good manners and markedly improved quality and efficiency, all at an impressively competitive price.