Hyundai Scoupe: It Exists

Remember the Hyundai Tiburon?  Sure you do.  You turned it down once as a rental car and instead chose to take taxis everywhere.  Or maybe your boyfriend had one, and a lot of tattoos.

There were two generations: one was butt-ugly and incredibly slow, and the other was surprisingly handsome and incredibly slow.  The zenith was the V6 model, which was laughably underpowered (or, as Korean engineers might call it, “optimally designed”) at just 172 horses.  If you’re still unclear on the car, drive to a bad neighborhood and look for cars with those fake fender portholes only considered classy by people who aren’t.  It won’t be long before you find a Tiburon.

While the Tiburon was a bad attempt at sporty, it wasn’t Hyundai’s first.  That honor goes to the car you see here: the 1991-1995 Hyundai Scoupe.

The Scoupe got its start using the worst possible platform: that of the Hyundai Excel, which didn’t.  Worse, it borrowed the Excel’s engine, which was a 1.5-liter four rated at 81 horsepower (presumably just like the Elantra was rated at 40 miles per gallon – wink wink).  This would be like deciding to build a sports car with your bedframe as the chassis and a potato as the engine.

Fortunately, Hyundai listened to what must’ve been the overwhelming disgust from all humans ever and came up with a solution by 1993.  The fix was a turbocharger, which brought power to an almost uncontrollable 115.  It’s a wonder these don’t show up at autocross events like old Miatas.

Personally, my favorite part about the Scoupe is its name, which was intended to be a portmanteau of “Sporty” and “Coupe.”  It’s almost like Hyundai knew it wasn’t sporty, so that word only got one letter, while the rest of the name fell back on the only thing Hyundai could prove: that it was a coupe.

The Scoupe died after 1995 to make room for the Tiburon, and the blocky, underpowered beast was quickly forgotten.  These days, it’s not even classy enough for fender holes.  Just ask your tattooed boyfriend.