New Hyundai Elantra Wagon Has Ample Room And The Price Is Right

09/20/96

While some auto makers (notably the big three) seem to feel the station wagon has seen its best days and the mini van trend is here to stay, there are those among us, notably Ford (Escort) and Hyundai, who do not share that outlook. The Korean car builder upgraded its Elantra wagon for 1997 to give it a little more oomph and utility.

With the Elantra there are no surprises, you get what you pay for. It's a family wagon with folding back seats that allow you to carry a lot of stuff, and you'll like the 32 highway miles it gets per gallon, if you're taking it on a trip.

Huyndai's new power plant is the 4 cylinder, 130 HP Beta, 16 valve, 1795 cc engine. Here are the safety features you get for $14,443 (not including shipping) on this five-passenger wagon:

Dual airbags
ABS
5-mile-per-hour bumpers
side door beams
crumple zones.

For a few extra dollars cruise control and an upgraded stereo can be yours.

We took the subcompact wagon on a five hour trip from Newport Beach, CA to Las Vegas, and made it in under four hours. The speedo on the Elantra reads 140MPH top speed and we tried this downhill, flat out with a tail wind and got 101, then 103, and finally 107 MPH. But hey, that's fast enough in a family wagon, especially considering my passenger weighed 280 pounds and we had a couple of suitcases. The cruise control works just fine.

The wagon is slated to sell against Saturn SL , Toyota Corolla, Subaru Impreza, and Ford Escort--all of which cost more than the Elantra. The Korean auto maker claims that the Elantra eclipses the competing models in several (specification) categories: overall height, leg room, hip room, shoulder room, and overall passenger room.

So, like we observed earlier, with the Elantra you get what you pay for. For 14 grand you get a nice new wagon that seats five, carries packages, gets good gas mileage, and has a comprehensive warranty and roadside assistance program. We would have liked a tachometer so we could tell when the push button overdrive was operating. Yes, it has cup holders.

Bill Maloney -- The Auto Channel