Someone once very astutely remarked to me that "Hyundai is very good at putting shiny things right in front of the customer in the showroom." The new Elantra GT may embody this more than any Hyundai right now. At $22,000 this Elantra GT came with such high-end goodies as heated leather seats, a panoramic glass moonroof, and sleek European-feeling design inside and out. The interior feels especially premium with its piano black trim, cool blue lighting, and dampened buttons.

The Azera went away for a while, and it's hard to image that many people missed it. With the Sonata very ably serving in the midsize sedan segment and the Genesis sedan providing a premium, rear-wheel-drive move-up option, it looked as though the Azera had been squeezed out of its place in the Hyundai lineup. Hyundai product planners, however, saw a sliver of space between the Sonata and the Genesis -- or maybe they were just hewing to the company's secret decree to have a direct competitor for every Toyota model (the Avalon, in this case). Regardless of why, a new Azera bowed last year, and it turns out that the Azera makes a case for itself by delivering traditional Hyundai virtues.

This is the thirteenth concept car produced by Hyundai’s California Design studio. Thus, that three-letter acronym and accompanying number actually mean something—besides the fact that the folks at Hyundai are superstitious and skipped number thirteen, that is. This counters the trendy random collection of letters beloved by automotive marketers and applied liberally to all sorts of cars and SUVs in the hope that some Teutonic precision will rub off on their cheaper models. This time, Hyundai has conjured up one of the best-proportioned sedans in a very long time yet managed to throw away all those proportional advantages with one of the ugliest, bluntest front ends to appear in public in many years.

Welcome to Automobile Magazine's Midsize Madness, our comparison test of the kind of car you see on American roads every day, the midsize sedan.

Mainstream sedans--millions of them. Get out there on the road and you'll find them. Not too big and not too small, all built for the way we drive in this country--even if the carmakers labels seem to come from elsewhere. These are midsize cars built to suit American roads and American drivers, so we really should call them American sedans.

Coronado, California

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Hyundai refuses to rest on its laurels. In 2008, it pushed into the luxury-car realm in the U.S. and is now looking to make the German stalwarts shake in their boots with the second-generation Genesis sedan. Take a good look at the HCD-14 Genesis Concept at the 2013 Detroit auto show -- it's a direct preview of what to expect from Hyundai's midsize luxury fighter for 2015.

Announcing the winners of IntelliChoice’s 14th annual ranking of 2013 Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) manufacturer-sponsored programs. For the sixth straight year, Volvo took the top ranking among Premium manufacturers, while Hyundai won for the best Popular program for the second year in a row. The winners were announced at the 2012 Certified Pre-Owned Forum and National Remarketing Conference in Scottsdale. IntelliChoice issues the industry’s only report card for Certified Pre-Owned vehicles and many manufacturers have developed their programs using the IntelliChoice.com inspection and ranking criteria as benchmarks.

The humble Hyundai Veracruz, on sale in its current iteration since 2007, was one of the last holdouts of "old Hyundai," a crossover that soldiered on with bland exterior design while brandmates like the Sonata and Elantra added fancy new powertrains and sharp exterior looks. No more: Hyundai's seven-passenger crossover, now named Santa Fe, enters the 2013 model year with "new Hyundai" written all over it.

Hyundai's Veloster is fun no matter the trim level or model: buyers of the 138-hp Veloster or 201-hp Veloster Turbo know they're getting a funky, four-door hatchback with eye-popping looks. Hyundai's newest Veloster, the C3 Roll Top Concept, takes the so-called urban design of the Veloster to its logical conclusion by replacing the roof with a sliding convertible top and including all sorts of hipster-friendly design elements.

Allow us to stop you before you even begin. We're well aware there are many other turbocharged compact cars on the market that can out-gun the 2013 Hyundai Veloster Turbo, the 2012 Volkswagen Beetle Turbo, and the 2012 Nissan Juke SL and cost about the same amount of money. We've praised the now-arriving Ford Focus ST, tussled with the hairy Mazdaspeed 3, and named the Volkswagen GTI our Automobile of the Year twice in the past five years. Why look elsewhere for forced-induction fun?

A high clutch engagement point, a wonky gear lever, and abrupt power delivery make the Hyundai Genesis coupe 2.0T a tricky car to drive smoothly. After a day or two behind the wheel, it gets easier, but the powertrain certainly isn't as silky smooth as that of a Volkswagen 2.0 TFSI manual. I commend Hyundai for including this car -- and this powertrain -- in its lineup, but refinement is not one of the Genesis coupe's strong points.

The majority of the compact-sedan class has been heavily revised or totally redesigned in the past two years, and Dodge has just rolled out its Alfa Romeo-based Dart, the latest entry in a hotly contested segment. Will the Dart be able to topple the best of the bunch from the top spot?

Park City, Utah -- Hyundai marches to the beat of a different drummer -- or, at least, a different marketer. Beyond its unusually long ten-year powertrain warranty and its slightly offbeat entries like the Veloster and Elantra GT, the Korean company seems to have its own ideas when it comes to naming conventions: we're still not sure why a $25,000 sports car shares a Genesis badge with a $35,000 luxury sedan. Now Hyundai is looking to shake up the crossover markets with the redesigned Santa Fe.

It's difficult for me to wrap my head around the Hyundai Equus. I certainly appreciate the enormous cabin and plethora of technology and convenience features. Unfortunately the cabin is trimmed in materials that are just nice. Yes, the Equus undercuts the price of the competition by tens of thousands of dollars, but cars this big are supposed to have over-the-top materials quality. It makes sense to offer a fairly basic mid-size sedan or crossover. I don't fully understand the appeal of a car this big that has all the luxury features of the competition with a downmarket interior.