Next-generation Hyundai Elantra Touring to ditch wagon bodystyle

Hyundai CEO, John Krafcik has confirmed that the next-generation Elantra Touring will launch in late 2012 as a 2013 model. Krafcik added the recent Elantra sedan was designed with the American market in mind, while the current Elantra Touring (i30 CW in Europe and Australia) was penned primarily for the European market.

"We launched the Elantra touring a couple of years after we launched the Elantra and we're going to have the same model cycle for Elantra Touring here," Krafcik said. "We're going to get the next-generation i30 here in the U.S. market in a couple of years."

Hyundai will sell its own version of the Kia
Forte5. The vehicle underpins the current Kia Cerato/
Forte/Hyundai Elantra/Avante and the upcoming
Kia Cee'd and Hyundai i30

Krafcik concluded that the forthcoming i30CW won't share too much DNA with the current model as the American version of the i30CW will be a hatchback, similar to that of the Kia Forte5.

"It's a great design. The Elantra Touring design actually came out of our California studio. We're going to go with the shorter five-door hatchback bodystyle instead of the larger wagon style we have now."