The 2022 Hyundai Kona N was caught on German roads during a video shoot this week. Our spy managed to snag photos of it from just about every angle, giving us our first complete picture of Hyundai’s new performance-oriented CUV.
We often seen spy photos of mules in prototypes that still leave quite a bit to the imagination, but there’s absolutely nothing ambiguous about this near-production photo shoot example, which Hyundai kindly released into the wild wearing all of its trim and badges in order to look good for the cameras. Some elements, such as the upgraded brakes and large-diameter exhaust (which manages to look even bigger on the final product), have been spotted on Kona N prototypes before; Hyundai even teased a prototype wearing nearly nothing, but this certainly takes the cake.
Elements which were previously hidden, including the three vent nostrils on the N’s hood, are now clearly visible. We can also see the accent striping (similar to that found on the Veloster N) on the Kona’s lower fascia. Our spy speculates that the “HN 280” plates could be a hint as to its power output. 280 PS would translate to about 276 horsepower, which is in line with our expectations.
That power should come from a 2.0-liter, turbocharged engine (again, see Veloster N) which will likely be mated to the company’s 8-speed, dual-clutch automatic and some sort of performance all-wheel-drive system. The latter is new territory for Hyundai, so we’re curious to see what shakes out. There’s plenty more we don’t yet know about the Kona N, but now that we’ve seen it in the flesh, it won’t be long before Hyundai officially spills the beans on its first performance crossover.
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