Looks like the compact hatchback club will gain another new member. For all of the Hyundai recommendations on this thread, I didn't give them much of a look, because I wanted a hatchback and the Elantra Touring wagon was a carryover of the previous model, which I did not like.

Lo and behold, Hyundai is now set to debut the two-door coupe and five-door hatchback versions of the Elantra. This looks like a seriously competitive car for this class. Depending on how Hyundai prices the Hyundai GT hatchback, it could really challenge the Focus, Mazda3, Impreza, and Golf. As one of the other enthusiast sites said, the compact hatchbacks now available in the U.S. have never been better.

2013 Hyundai Elantra GT delivers lightness, functionality



In terms of styling, I generally like lines on the Elantra GT, but the proportions look a bit stubby in the back (but they increased the interior space by making the car taller, which probably gives it those slightly awkward looking proportions). The interior though looks great.



The bottomline on the Elantra GT is that it's nearly a foot shorter than the Focus, Mazda3, and Impreza, and a few inches longer than the Golf. However, it has more interior space than all of them. While the Elantra GT has a less powerful engine, it also weighs less than all of them and ties the Mazda3 Skyactiv for the highest EPA fuel economy.

What remains to be seen is how the car performs, and how the fuel economy measures up in real world driving. And the new hatchback is much smaller than the current Elantra Touring wagon, and it looks like Hyundai will not bring the wagon back.

Like the Focus, Hyundai loaded the car with technology features, which has its benefits and drawbacks. The benefit obviously is that the manufacturer can wow the customers with a long list of standard features and eye-popping technology. The disadvantage is that these cutting edge features can be frustrating to operate while driving, and they tend to be very buggy.

Ford's experience with loading up its newer models with technology gadgets led to a big drop in its reliability ranking. And Hyundai, which debuted many of these features on other models, has seen its reliability ranking drop as well (in the latest JD Power IQS ranking, Hyundai is now below the industry average, after rating #1 among non-luxury brands just two years ago).

The reliance on gadgetry was one reason I wound up not going with the Focus (base models are available, but in order to get options that I wanted, most of those cars I saw also came with the bug-ridden tech features that I did not want).

Seeing Hyundai seeming to hit its stride is now a glaring contrast to how far behind Honda has fallen. The new dumbed-down Civic is still selling well, but how much longer can they continue pumping out bland and unimaginative cars before their sales do start to decline as other manufacturers continue to raise the bar and aggressively try to one up each other.