Page 52 - Motor Trend (February 2020)

FIRST DRIVE I 2020 Hyundai Venue
ntry-level vehicles are tough to
create. With low, low sticker prices
to contend with, automakers can’t
amortize big R&D budgets or include
Ereams of rich materials. But at the
same time, they can’t skimp on design;
consumers are too smart and demanding
today. Nor can carmakers cut corners on
safety and convenience features; buyers
expect Top Safety Pick+ ratings, Apple
CarPlay, and cruise control.
Into this fray enters the 2020 Hyundai
Venue subcompact crossover, which
slides below the similarly tidy Kona in
Hyundai’s SUV lineup. The Venue shares
the K2 platform with the Kona and the
Accent, which dropped its hatchback
version to clear a path for the Venue.
So if Hyundai already has the Kona
crossover in many flavors, including an
electric model, and still offers the Accent
as a sedan, why bother adding the Venue
to the lineup?
The Korean automaker sees opportu-
nity to woo first-time buyers with several
levels of affordability. Hook ’em early;
52 MOTORTREND.COM FEBRUARY 2020
keep ’em for life has been Car Marketing
101 since Alfred Sloan sported brogues.
According to Hyundai executives, of the
40 million used car buyers in the U.S. last
year, one in three also shopped new cars
but couldn’t find anything affordable. The
Venue was designed to fill that gap.
Although the automaker is not releasing yet to adopt the term “crossover.” But
pricing yet, a starting price below $20,000
is a must. It will compete with the $19,530
Nissan Kicks, $21,580 Ford EcoSport, the
2019 Mazda CX-3 starting at $21,385, and
the Venue’s Korean cousin, the Kia Soul,
which starts at $18,485.
We drove the new Venue in Queensland, but small crossovers are gaining popu-
Australia. Why the long trek to drive an
econobox? Production for the Austra-
lian market started four months before
the South Korea assembly plant began
churning out models homologated for
CUBED
the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. A more
basic version of the Venue went on sale
in India in May and has quickly become
that country’s top-selling SUV.
(A quick aside: We’re calling it an
SUV because Hyundai calls it an SUV
and because the general population has
snow-clime residents should know the
Venue is front-drive only, with no plans
to add AWD, and carries only 6.7 inches
of ground clearance.)
It used to be that B-segment vehicles
were considered too small for the U.S.,
larity in North America, and the segment
has grown to 735,000 units globally.
The Venues we drove in Oz were right-
hand drive, but they’re comparable to the
models North America will get with the
same 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine and
CVT. No manuals were available to drive,
but the base engine will be offered with a
six-speed stick shift in North America.
Suspension-wise, the springs and
stabilizer are the same, but the shock