LAS VEGAS — Hyundai already builds some of the most popular cars among young Hispanic buyers, vehicles that sell well in San Antonio because they offer great value for the price, which often is under $10,000 for a brand-new car with a 10-year/100,000-mile warranty.
Among the company's popular, affordable lineup are the subcompact Accent sedan; the compact Elantra sedan and its performance version, the Elantra GT; the midsize Sonata sedan; and the best-selling compact sport utility, the Santa Fe.
With youth, particularly Hispanics, one of the most popular Hyundai models is the subcompact Tiburon, a sporty coupe introduced in late 1996 by the South Korean automaker to do battle with the likes of the Honda Civic coupe and the Mitsubishi Eclipse, among others.
The Tiburon production car descended from the Hyundai California Design II concept car introduced at the 1993 Detroit auto show. That car was tweaked and introduced at the 1996 Detroit show as the Tiburon show car, which was then introduced in nearly the same form later that year as a 1997 model.
Named after the little, upscale Marin County town in San Francisco Bay, where the ferries run almost hourly from San Francisco's wharf area, the Tiburon was the first Hyundai to be completely designed in California.
As with the Civic, the Tiburon has been a popular "tuner" car, one that owners take and customize with numerous aftermarket parts to create a vehicle that is a unique expression of the owner's personality.
With sporty styling, decent performance and a host of aftermarket options available, the Tiburon has given the Civic and Eclipse some real competition among youthful buyers who like the whole tuner-car concept.
Now, Hyundai is rolling out a completely redesigned Tiburon that is larger, roomier and more powerful than before, not to mention a whole lot better-looking.
The new model also is a creation of Hyundai's California design studio and is intended to reach the same crowd of young automotive enthusiasts who so heartily embraced the original model.
But because the 2003 Tiburon is so much better than the original — and quite possibly much better than its biggest competitors, too — Hyundai hopes that it can significantly increase its market share in the entry-level sporty coupe segment.
"The new Tiburon's concept is that of a sporty coupe that is entertaining to drive and has sporty good looks," Hyundai product planning director David Ossenmacher said during a recent media ride-and-drive program for the new Tiburon in Las Vegas.
The previous model was so cute that the majority of buyers were female, but with the new model, Hyundai is striving to bring more male buyers into the mix with an emphasis on more "masculine" styling and better performance, thanks to the introduction of a V-6 engine option for the first time in the Tiburon line.
"It offers exciting performance and muscular styling designed to appeal to young enthusiasts," Ossenmacher said. "It's more aggressive, authentic and masculine than before."
And in line with Hyundai's corporate philosophy of providing the best value in any vehicle class in which it competes, a fully equipped Tiburon GT model with 181-horsepower, 2.7-liter V-6 engine and a new six-speed manual transmission is priced just under $20,000, a price about $2,800 less than a comparable Eclipse GT and $3,850 less than a similarly equipped Toyota Celica, both of which have four-cylinder engines (147 horsepower in the Eclipse and 180 in the Celica).
"With the new Tiburon, you can buy the car fully equipped and then add the aftermarket accessories you want and still pay less than you would for a stock Eclipse or Celica," Ossenmacher said.
That top-of-the-line model, with a list price of $19,997, is the Ultra Sports 3 version with a moon roof, antilock brakes, high rear spoiler, six-speed manual gearbox and aluminum pedals.
You don't have to pay that much to get a 2003 Tiburon, however. The base model with a 2.0-liter inline four-cylinder engine, rated at 140 horsepower (this is the same engine from the previous generation Tiburon), begins at $15,999 with a five-speed manual. That price is up $1,500 from the base 2002 model, but has enough additional content to make it actually $400 less than a comparably equipped '02 model.
The GT V-6 model starts at $17,999, a price that includes leather interior. Here again, the base price of the GT is up $2,000 from 2002, but the value of additional content is $2,500, making the overall price $500 less than that of the previous generation.
The four-cylinder model is aimed at female buyers, and Hyundai expects that it will appeal to many of those who are present or past Tiburon owners. At least 65 percent of buyers of the four-cylinder model are expected to be women, while Hyundai believes that will be exactly reversed with the V-6.
During 2001, Hyundai sold 19,000 Tiburons but projects sales of at least 28,000 for the first full year of the redesigned model.
Demographic studies predict that the average age of Tiburon buyers will be 32 for both models; 40 percent of V-6 buyers will be married versus 35 percent of four-cylinder buyers.
Like all other Hyundai products, the new Tiburon comes with a 10-year/100,000-mile power-train warranty, a 5-year/60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, and 24-hour free roadside assistance for a full five years, with no mileage limitation.
The extra-long warranty, introduced on Hyundai products in 1999 to help convince consumers that the company has gotten its previous quality problems under control, will continue at least through the 2003 model year, said Bob Cosmai, Hyundai USA's vice president for national sales.
No factory-sponsored incentives will be offered on the new Tiburon, he said, because the company believes that the car already is value priced.
As a company, Hyundai had its best U.S. sales year in history for 2001, with a total of 346,235 vehicles sold. That ranks Hyundai as the fifth-leading U.S. import brand, behind Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Volkswagen. In fact, Hyundai nearly overtook VW for the year, finishing just 9,413 units behind the German automaker in total U.S. sales.