Hyundai will take advantage from Kona’s mid-life cycle facelift to pulling out all the stops and despite offering design changes and upgraded interior, will add new high-performance N variant as well as N-Line models. Now we got the latest spy pictures together with the engines that both models will use, and we were surprised!
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The Hyundai Kona is a relatively new product on the market – more precisely, it was launched for the 2018 model year in the United States. And while we’ve seen spy photos with the South Korean crossover, they were related to the N performance version or hybrid variant of the model. This is the first time we can share shots showing a prototype of the facelifted Kona.
We are quite surprised to see the test car wearing an extensive amount of camouflage considering the fact that we are expecting just a minor mid-cycle refresh, different that what we have seen on the Grandeur facelift or what the Santa Fe is going to receive that are closer to a model change than just a facelift.
But thanks to this new spy pictures we can see that the changes are wider, just look at the picture below and you will see a new grille similar to what we have seen in the Santa Fe facelift and a new pair of headlights that remains me the new Kia Sorento, we also can see some smaller changes to the front bumper.
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At the back there will be equal small changes (initially we thought the headlights and indicators keep the same design), but these are stage 2 prototypes and now are wearing production tailights which are different and also looks like indicators and reverse lights are now full LED in the N-Line.
So we can see new rear light graphics, possibly conneted tailights? and this N-line has a sportier bumpers, with some imitation of fake air vents under black glossy, side skirts and red accents all over it. Updated engines and a small update to the interior is also planned as well as the high performance variant, the Kona N.
So finally, while the Kona N will have the 2.0 T-GDi engine, with 275 hp and 8-speed DCT wet transmission, the N-line will have the new Smartstream 1.6 Turbo GDi delivering 215 hp and matted to a 8-speed DCT. In the mean time, the regular Kona will receive the same engine as Sonata DN8, will the 1.6 Turbo GDi, 180 hp and 8 speed Automatic Transmission. In some parts of the world the latest is the most powerful engine available, while in South Korea is the base gasoline engine.
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