Hyundai Highlights Horsepower, Style at SEMA

Hyundai is underscoring two things at its SEMA display this year: power and style.

The Korean company has five custom cars on display in its booth this year, mostly focused on the potential to tune for more power. The one exception to that is a Sonata built by John Pangilinan that also gets performance modifications but misses out on the high horsepower the other Hyundai cars have this year. It wears a wide body kit housing 19-inch RAYS wheels on top of coilovers and sport springs.

Pangilnan also added a cold air intake, exhaust and a hot charge pipe from Bisimoto Engineering.

The car also gets custom vinyl art by Japanese American street artist Mr. 44. Inside it gets Recaro sport seats and a custom stereo system.

Then there’s the really interesting stuff. Bisimoto built a 708-hp race car this year based on the new Sonata. The car starts with the same 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine you would find in one of Hyundai’s road-going midsize sedans and adds a long list of modifications including forged pistons, connecting rods and a high-boost turbocharger among other changes. The heavily boosted engine is connected to a six-speed manual gearbox as part of a package that the company says will add up to supercar-beating power.

But Bisimoto isn’t the only one that built a boosted four-cylinder project this year. Blood Type Racing thoroughly revised a 2.0T Genesis Coupe, pushing it to 800 horsepower at the wheels. Just like the Bisimoto Sonata, this car is heavily re-built throughout with components meant to withstand added power. Its manual transmission uses a competition ready flywheel and clutch while the engine itself is bored out for greater displacement. At the crank it makes 1,000 hp.

Toca marketing group tuned a Genesis sedan for SEMA this year, pushing the 5.0-liter V8 to 600 hp by adding a Garrett twin turbo setup. Toca aimed at German luxury performance sedans with its build, adding an air suspension to the car that allows it to sit lower without compromising practicality. It also gets a serious set of brakes with eight-piston calipers in the front and six-piston calipers in the rear hiding behind 21-inch wheels.

The interior gets custom black leather upholstery with contrasting white stitching, carbon fiber trim. The exterior is also heavily modified with a unique all-metal wide body kit.

Finally, ARK Performance rounds off the booth with the AR550, a supercharged version of the new Genesis sedan that makes 550 hp. ARK is including all of the parts necessary for customers who want to replicate its SEMA build, which includes an air suspension, widened front and rear bumpers, a Brembo big brake kit and mild changes to the body all around.

ARK aimed to build a car that would look more like something that could compete with sedans like the Mercedes-AMG E63 or the BMW M5 without looking like a heavily customized vehicle.