The endless and endlessly entertaining march of Vision Gran Turismo virtual—and sometimes not-so-virtual—concept cars from real-life automakers designed to be plopped into Sony’s Gran Turismo video game continues, with Hyundai being the latest manufacturer to debut such a show car. Dubbed the N Vision 2025, not only does the concept shoulder the weight of expectations for wildness Vision GT cars increasingly face, but it also rather appropriately launches Hyundai’s new N high-performance sub-brand. (Hence the “N Vision 2025” portion of its name.)
-We find Hyundai’s decision to launch N—its equivalent of, say, Mercedes AMG or BMW M—with the Vision GT concept a bit strange. Not only is the Vision not real, but it’s not even a road car, which brings us to the marketing folks’ other blunder. The Vision GT car is so awesome-looking that we nearly forgot all about the real-life N business.
-This is a car that will exist digitally and nowhere else, unless Hyundai has some top-secret plans to enter Le Mans sometime soon. Furthermore, the concept car’s 872-hp hydrogen-fuel-cell- and supercapacitor-fed electric powertrain (which uses individual hub electric motors at each corner) bears little resemblance to anything due out of Hyundai’s N division, a crop of vehicles with “new powertrains and lightweight materials derived from Hyundai Motor’s World Rally Championship (WRC) participation, as well as performance-focused handling and aerodynamics.”
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According to Hyundai, shreds of the N Vision 2025 are shared with regular Hyundais, among them the brand’s now-signature hexagonal grille shape and wheels. Again, this is not to rain on the Vision concept’s parade—the car looks incredible and is a worthy companion to the video-game efforts dreamt up by Mercedes, Bugatti, SRT, and others—it’s just that it completely overshadows the new N brand.
-Perhaps that’s for the better, since N’s slogan, “Ngaged: Moment of Pure Connection Between the Car and Driver,” not only puts our name in uncomfortable proximity of cheesy hyperbole, but is cheesy hyperbole, at least until the first N-tuned Hyundai hits the road.
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