Nominated this because it's my car, and of course, I'm curious to know what the community thinks of it.
I love my Veloster to death, but it simply isn't cool, borderline SU actually. It's simply too strange to be Cool. The most glaring example of its strangeness is having three doors, one on the driver's side and two on the passenger side, making it asymmetrical. On the very first day I brought it to school, my friends asked me "why does your car have three doors". That alone speaks volumes about how the Veloster is perceived by non-car people. It simply doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a sports coupe? An economy car? A 3-door hatchback? It's a bit of all of them, frankly.
Furthermore, the Veloster seems like an awful buy in comparison to its competitors. Other than it having three-doors, it's smaller and less practical than basically all of the other subcompact cars on the market. Who would pay over 20k for a Veloster when cars like the Accent, Kia Rio, Honda Fit, Nissan Versa, etc exist. These cars, although soulless, are much less money and have more interior space than my Veloster, and are also better on gas. No wonder why Hyundai only manages to sell 10-15k Velosters each year in the US. But this is precisely why I bought a Veloster over an Accent or a car like that. It's so quirky that no one wants one. It has virtually zero competition. A car having character and originality mattered more to me than it is a good value, practical, and conventional, which it isn't. I could be paying 229/mo on a car much larger and "normal", but I didn't.
The new Veloster is certainly an improvement over its predecessor, though. It looks less controversial and strange (though it still just as quirky), has more of a road presence, handles better, and is a much better value. It also feels and drives less like a Hyundai Accent than the outgoing model, according to reviewers.
As for the Veloster N, it's certainly an interesting car and reminds me that Hyundai is capable of cranking out anything, but it's too left-field to be an actual competitor to hot hatches like the Civic Type R, Golf R, Megane Trophy, Leon Cupra R, etc.
