Hyundai holds Top 5 test drive

It was probably the sleek silver two-door sports coupe weaving smartly through a set of orange cones that caught people’s attention. From afar the silver bullet looked every inch like an Italian exotic with its wedge shape, big wheels and ground-hugging silhouette.

The roar from its engine mixed with the bark of its angry dual exhausts as wide tires squealed with the effort of high-speed cornering. Moving closer to the action, we saw that the driver was wearing a smile — a very wide toothy smile. He was enjoying the car.

Not far behind was a pair of dignified-looking luxury sedans, one in a very diplomatic-looking black and the other, slightly smaller one, in white, looking very much like a Jaguar S-Type.

The giveaway, however, was not hard to miss: the unmistakable image of a brand new charcoal gray Starex van, its seats still wrapped in plastic, sitting beside a small white 5-door wagon-like car dubbed the Matrix MPV.

Welcome to the Hyundai Top 5 test drive. Held at the Fort Bonifacio Global City last Saturday, the public test drive was conducted by Hyundai Asia Resources Inc. (HARI), the exclusive local distributor of Hyundai passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, to give the general public, especially those who have not owned or driven a Hyundai, a chance to experience one or all of their locally available models.

The cars’ high quality is perhaps the one thing that HARI wants to communicate to the public and, having driven all five cars at the venue, even with only short stints, I can say that the Korean giant is very much knocking on the Japanese doors’ as far as design, features, performance and build quality are concerned.

Needless to say the typically car-crazy Filipino came out in droves to sample the hardware: families complete with yayas, couples, even barkadas who just wanted to sample what life would be like behind the wheel of a Ferrari-look-alike.

The models were the aforementioned Starex powered by a 2.5-liter intercooled turbodiesel engine, the 1.5-liter 16-valve Matrix compact 5-seat MPV, the P997,000 2.0-liter 16-valve Jaguar-like Sonata mid-sized sedan, the P1.6 million limo-like XG luxury sedan powered by a 2.5-liter 24-valve V6 and, the star of the show, the P960,000 2.0-liter 16-valve Coupe that looked twice as expensive as it was.

HARI had similar models on static display for those who wanted to just sit inside the cars. They also had a free 18-point on-site check-up for visitors, even for non-Hyundai models.

Walking away from the big white Hyundai tents at the venue, I couldn’t help feeling impressed by this resurgent brand. The Japanese may still rule the industry in this country but, given time, Hyundai and the rest of the Korean auto industry will definitely make their presence felt. And then some.