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IED Torino students dream up the PassoCorto for Hyundai

Every year the students at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in Turin work up something new to unveil at the Geneva Motor Show. It's usually a concept for an Italian automaker (like the Alfa Romeo Gloria, the Cisitalia 202 E or the Abarth ScorpION) or at least something European (like the concepts they worked up with McLaren or the ones they did for Aston Martin). But this time they've wandered a little farther from home in designing a sports car for Hyundai.
It's called the PassoCorto - Italian for "short wheelbase" - and it was designed in collaboration between the grad students in the Master in Transportation Design program (under the supervision of Pininfarina design Luca Borgogno) and the Hyundai's European design center.
The design (theoretically) calls for a 1.6-liter twin-turbo four, mounted amidships and driving 266 horsepower to the rear wheels. It looks pretty promising, and if Hyundai were ever keen on taking on the likes of the Alfa Romeo 4C and Porsche Cayman, this strikes us as a damn good place to start.

Hyundai in hot water over suicide-themed commercial

There's a surprisingly long and storied history of automakers creating suicide-themed advertisements. You'd think the companies and their marketing firms would have figured out by now that such ads always result in a swirl of backlash - see examples from Audi, Citroën, General Motors and Volkswagen, all pasted down below, as proof.
It seems somebody at Hyundai didn't get the message that many people don't find suicide a laughing matter. A video making the rounds on the web that was, according to Hyundai, produced in the UK, depicts a man trying to commit suicide by pumping exhaust fumes into the passenger compartment of his car. As it turns out, the self-assisted death doesn't quite go according to plan.
Scroll down below to see the ad from Hyundai, a slew of similar spots from other automakers, and an official statement from Hyundai. After that, we suggest reading this piece from our friends at AOL Autos to see how deeply such thoughtless advertisements can affect people.

New Hyundai i30 N hot hatch makes at least 250 horsepower

The chefs at Hyundai's new N performance division are working on their first dish, a Korean take on the ever popular hot hatch. The new model will be a modified version of the i30, or Elantra GT here in the US. Hyundai Motor Europe revealed a new teaser today showing the car testing on public roads in the UK. While we could cross our fingers for this spiritual successor to the Renault 5 Turbo, the car appears to be a traditional Volkswagen GTI and Ford Focus ST competitor. The first teaser from March showed the new i30 dancing around at a snow-covered testing facility in Sweden. While the video did give us a few cool shots of the new car tossing up a bit of the white stuff, it didn't actually reveal any new details. This new video is different, showing what might be the car's horsepower and torque rating. A quick shot of a computer screen shows 257.5 PS at 6,000 rpm and 302.1 Nm, which translates to about 254 horsepower and 223 lb-ft of torque in American. It's unclear if this is power at the crank or the wheels, but it seems to be right in the middle of the pack for the segment. We're really looking forward to this new model. Hyundai (and Kia for that matter) has been on a roll the past few years. Its cars are no longer simply value buys. The Elantra Sport shows the company is capable of building a enthusiastic little all rounder that can compete with the big guys. It looks like the car is in the final stages of development, so look for a full reveal sometime this fall. Related Video: