AURORA | It’s hard to make the case for the coupe these days. Short of sports cars and convertibles, it seems like the bespoke coupe crashed along with the 1970s oil crisis. Long, sleek and short two doors, the coupes of yesteryear were a classy way to say: “Why yes. Four doors would be easier, but my children are second-class citizens anyway. What’s asking them to pull a seatback lever and contort their bodies around seatbelts when I won’t even let them even talk at the dinner table?”
The 2013 Hyundai Elantra Coupe makes a case that coupes can exist now, albeit separately, in a world that not only gives children their own doors, but also rewards them for flinging peas at each other at the table. That’s called “free expression,” you know.
For starters, the Elantra is not a “stylish” improvement on the original sedan. Simply lopping two doors from the original car didn’t really improve the original Elantra, mainly because it wasn’t bad looking to begin with. Instead, the coupe takes a similar-but-different approach by accentuating the coupe’s wedge features by moving the A and C pillars to sweep the roofline up and down quickly in the front and rear. The resulting cabin is relatively unchanged from the sedan, and — as Hyundai is quick to point out — is still bigger than the class-standard Honda Civic coupe’s greenhouse. There are further additional cues to differentiate the Elantra sedan and coupe, such as the coupe’s higher belt line and crease, lower rear rocker panels and optional 17-inch wheels, but if you’re expecting the coupe to be wholly different from the sedan, I’d suggest looking at it upside down — or something.
Coupes in this class, such as the Ford Focus, Mazda3 and Civic and Kia Forte are built on being efficient (read: inexpensive) thus making the most important number when it comes to the Elantra Coupe this: $18,390. That entry price is $600 more than the Elantra sedan but $365 less than the Honda Civic Coupe.
For that price you get a six-speed manual transmission and the standard 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine. (There’s no other engine option at the moment, however almost certainly there’ll be a turbo soon.) Our test vehicle offered options like a 7-inch satellite-navigation stereo ($2,350) and automatic transmission ($1,000) but didn’t run over $24,000 after everything was said and done. That engine — which is directly injected, variably valve timed and everything else to wring mileage out of it — is the same lump found in the sedan and largely rock solid.
It’s not the quietest at highway speeds and it’s not the fastest up to 60 mph, but it is confident and peppy pulling the coupe’s nearly 3,000-lb heft up and down mountain passes. I took the Elantra Coupe, automatic transmission and all, up to a mountain town at night and found that cruising at the speed limit didn’t require noisy flogging and passing was possible, despite the gearing and engine’s predisposition for low RPM and high mileage everywhere, all the time.
Despite advertising 28/39 mpg for the automatic (29/40 for the manual) the Elantra Coupe can return mileage in the mid- to high-30s without much effort. That six-speed automatic isn’t a sophisticated dual-clutch or even sporty, but it shuffles the power well and keeps the car compliant and well mannered through most daily efforts. Hyundai says the suspension has been tuned sportier for the coupe, with a beefed front stabilizer and damper tuning, but the difference from the sedan isn’t perceptible under normal circumstances.
Back to the back, it’s possible to fit two adults in the rear seats, provided they don’t hang themselves on the seatbelt. There is plenty of headroom, and legroom is good if you’re not over 6 feet tall or going more than 60 miles, although it’s worth calling “shotgun” early for longer road trips.
In all, the coupe makes a good case for two fewer doors for the Elantra, but not because it’s dramatically better.
The Elantra Coupe makes a case that it’s a good value-for-money proposition all by itself. Which is more than those two-door land yachts you weren’t allowed to talk about in the backseat of yesteryear.
Aaron Cole is a syndicated auto columnist. He knows he’s wrong, he’d just rather hear it from you. Reach him at aaron.m.cole@gmail.com or @ColeMeetsCars.