It’s not uncommon for fresh redesigns of North American vehicles to first appear in other markets — especially when those markets are the marque’s home country. That seems to be the case here, with what’s described as a “design preview” of the Hyundai Avante potentially foreshadowing next year’s Elantra on this side of the pond.
Appearing on a Korean-market site belonging to Hyundai, we find a car bearing a mild facelift of its front fascia, incorporating a body-colour horizontal bar bifurcating the grille and bookended by a set of narrow headlamps. It appears there is a skiff of light connecting those lamps, a popular design trend utilizing LEDs in a modern take on what us old-timers remember as the Mercury lightbar. There is a forward-facing camera in the grille as well.
2024 Hyundai Avante (Korean market) Photo by Hyundai
2024 Hyundai Avante (Korean market) Photo by Hyundai
2024 Hyundai Avante (Korean market) Photo by Hyundai
The car’s sharp door creases remain, creating interesting styling features but causing headaches for anyone trying to smoothly affix a removable decal or vehicle wrap (trust our personal experience on that observation, okay?). Similarly, there are few changes to the taillamps, but an expressive swoop of colour-keyed material now wraps its way along the rear bumper, breaking up the expanse of black plastic and adding some visual interest. Changes to the interior, if any, appear minimal.
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Hyundai isn’t afraid to mix up the look of its vehicles, with the brand frequently showing off its styling chops by either introducing rapid mid-cycle refreshes like this one; or trotting out a new variant of an existing nameplate which appears completely different from its predecessor (witness each generation of the Santa Fe, Tucson, or this Elantra as examples).
This time around, the changes shown here are an appropriate evolution of the model, incorporating a few tweaks without requiring costly movement of so-called ‘hard points’. While some ninnies will insist the current Elantra isn’t a looker, your author will insist that it’s one of the more noticeable shapes in its segment, and I’ll take an interesting styling exercise over a wallflower amorphous blob any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
With these images now floating around the web, it is not unreasonable to expect the North American version of the 2024 Hyundai Elantra to appear – at least in “preview” form – some time this calendar year.
Keyword: Korean-market car points to 2024 facelift for Hyundai Elantra