The Hyundai Tucson Sport is one of South Africa’s best selling mid-size SUVs and is much loved by those that buy them. South Africans love their cars, giving them names, buying expensive accessories for them and so on.

Now car manufacturers know this and have, for a long time, been offering standard cars with sports accessories fitted as standard. BMW’s M Sports, Mercedes Benz' AMG Line, Opel’s Irmscher, Toyota's TRD and Nissan’s Nismo all fall under this banner.

Enter Hyundai Tucson’s Sports moniker. The Tucson Sport sees the addition of an imported body kit, matched to the vehicle's colour, a set of 19-inch black one-off alloy wheels and an engine ECU tune, courtesy of Dastek and a Unichip. The 1.6-litre turbocharged engine receives an engine tune that is subtle, yet effective, bumping engine power to 150kW and 295Nm. The engine lets you know it was fettled with, letting out a pleasant burble through the four exit stainless steel exhaust.

It makes for an exhilarating drive and is worth taking a look at if you’ve had to trade in your hot hatch for a family sedan.

There will only be a limited amount of these Sport editions made and at only R500 000, are going for a steal. Knowing South Africa's penchant for special sports models and being only R50 000 more than the standard 1.6l Executive model, the Tucson Sport is sure to be hot property and find a home quickly with middle-aged tuning enthusiasts.

свернуть