Hyundai Elantra vs McLaren 750S

What's the difference?

The Elantra might be overlooked compared to its famous i30 stablemate, but it shouldn’t be. It’s every bit as entertaining to drive and just as well equipped.

It’s a shame active safety is on the option list for lower trim levels, and there’s no radar features on higher ones, and the unnecessary styling changes might polarise buyers. But the Elantra is otherwise a well-equipped and rewarding-to-drive package across the range.

Not just a love letter to the intoxicating delights of the mighty V8 engine, the McLaren 750S is a genuine joy across the board.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

Despite being a facelift of the rather good looking 2016 Elantra, the 2019 car has taken a hard turn into the domain of triangles and right-angles.

The new styling has proved controversial in the CarsGuide office. The Go and Active seem to have largely abandoned many of the styling points which Hyundai has invested in over the past few years, with their vertically lined grilles and abundance of triangle light fittings.

All the extra space on the big, flat rear is taken up by the big-font ‘Elantra’ text and Hyundai logo, which is '90s-style in design.

The Sport and identical-from-the-outside Sport Premium are angry looking cars, with frowning LED light fittings, giant alloys and an abundance of angular black highlights.

The side skirts, rear diffuser and spindle grille give the Sport variants an impressive amount of presence on the road. There’s no spoiler to be found, though.

Inside, the Go and Active are a fairly basic offering, with the Active scoring a leather wheel and some extra niceties. The dash is a sea of grey, however, and the nice touchscreen is humbled by its old-school in-dash positioning.

The Sport grades add some more sophisticated touches, with sporty leather-trimmed seats, a flat-bottomed steering wheel and a more subtle climate-control console rather than the clunky air-conditioning one used in lesser variants.

All cars have a sensible trip computer and simple gauges in the instrument cluster.

Missing from any variant is a digital dashboard as seen in the Honda Civic. There’s also the argument that the Elantra’s cousin, the Kia Cerato, has a more forward-thinking cabin design.

McLaren concedes the cosmetic updates for the 750S are “relatively subtle”, but there have been some key changes.

The front bumper and splitter are new, as is the rear bumper, while the rear wing is now bigger, with 20 per cent more surface area.

Also at the back, a new (and lighter, of course) stainless steel exhaust is now centre-exit, rather than off to either side.

Like the 720S before it, the 750S looks more like a statement of intent than a designer’s dream, with aerodynamic function over form the order of the day.

In the cabin, you’re looking at two sports seat, a grippy Alcantara steering wheel, and two relatively small screens by today’s sizeable standards.

You can have your cabin trim in full Nappa leather, or the leather mixed with Alcantara, and the audio is taken care of by Bowers & Wilkins.

Still, the 750S delivers everything you need and nothing you don’t in a car in this category.

Up front, the Elantra offers decent room. The Cabin feels a smidge more spacious than its i30 hatch sibling, and there’s plenty of leg and headroom on offer in every variant - except for the sport premium, which has a cropped roofline due to the sunroof. While there’s a decent centre console box, the door lacks a bit of padded trim for your elbow.

Like the rest of Hyundai’s range, the Elantra has a slew of generous cubbys and cupholders throughout the cabin. Underneath the air-con console is a deep trench which houses a 12v output, USB port and, in the Sport Premium variant, the Qi wireless phone charging pad.

Rear passengers are granted great legroom and decently sized cupholders in the doors, as well as a drop-down arm rest with two more cupholders.

The Active and Go lack rear air vents, whereas the Sport and Sport Premium offer two for back-seat passengers.

The available boot space should serve as a reminder why sedans shouldn’t be overlooked for practicality reasons, with 458 litres VDA on offer. Still, it is bested in this segment by the luggage capacity of the Cerato (520L), Civic (517L), and Impreza (460L). A rubber cargo liner and fabric bumper protector are available as genuine accessories.

In an annoying niggle, the Sport variants ride quite low around their midsections due to the flared bodykit bits. I found these would quite easily scrape if you weren’t careful over speedbumps or shopping centre ramps. Go and Active variants were fine in terms of clearance.

Next question, please. This is a stripped-back, lightweight, two-seat supercar designed to get you to, and then around, a corner in the least amount of time possible. So, no, you can’t fit much in the way of grocery shopping in the back.

You can, however fit a total 150 litres (front) and 210 litres (rear) in the 750S, and it gets bonus points for having deep cut-outs in the roof that make slipping in under those scissor doors far easier than you might expect.

The McLaren 750S can be yours in hardtop ($585,800) or drop-top Spider ($654,600) guises, both of which have travelled north from the pricing applied to the 720S, which was $489,900 at launch, and its Spider equivalent, which was $556,000.

What you’re getting, though, is more — and less— of everything. More power, more performance, more downforce and more stiffness, combined with less weight, with McLaren having taken a forensic approach to stripping kilos from the 750S.

What you're not getting, though, is much in the way of niceties, with the McLaren 750S offering less interior tech and comforts than a mid-range hatchback (“it now has Apple CarPlay,” they exclaimed excitedly).

But for mine, that only enhances the drive experience, with the 750S offering a genuinely pure-feeling drive — a steering wheel free of buttons, a cabin largely free of distractions, no safety chimes bonging, and a nuclear reactor attached to your right foot. These are all good things.

Elsewhere, the McLaren 750S rides on ultra-lightweight forged alloy wheels (19-inch front / 20-inch rear) wrapped in Pirelli P Zero rubber as standard, and there are thinly cushioned carbon-fibre-shelled racing seats that hold you snuggly in place, and are every bit as comfortable on bumpier roads as cuddling a cactus.

In the cabin, McLaren has worked to up the tech, though its best to remember this is pared-back over plush.

A steering column-mounted driver display is new, and delivers all your key driving info, and it’s framed by all your go-to switches, like your 'Drive Mode' options. 

In the centre, an 8.0-inch portrait-style screen now has Apple CarPlay as standard (but not Android Auto), and there are USB-C and USB-A connections for your devices, too.

There are two engines in the Elantra range. A dated 2.0-litre non-turbo engine which has hung around for a long time in Hyundai’s stable, and a much newer 1.6-litre turbo engine in higher variants.

Unlike the i30, there’s no option for a 1.6-litre turbo-diesel. Any EV and plug-in hybrid versions are still beyond the horizon (perhaps pending the success of the Ioniq).

The Go and Active variants share the 2.0-litre engine which produces 112kW/192Nm. The Go is available as either a six-speed manual or a six-speed traditional torque converter automatic. The Active is six-speed auto only.

The Sport and Sport Premium are powered by the excellent 150kW/256Nm 1.6-litre turbo. Aside from the Kia Cerato GT, which shares the same engine, the next closest competitor at this price point is the outgoing Mazda3 SP25 (139kW/252Nm).

The Sport and Sport Premium can either be had with a six-speed manual gearbox or a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, and can cycle between ‘normal’, ‘sport’ and ‘eco’ drive modes.

The Elantra range is a strictly front-wheel-drive affair, as there’s no option for all-wheel drive.

Ah, now we’re talking. In the huge-displacement world of supercars, a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 might sound a little on the small side when put up against V10s and V12s out of Italy. 

But this mid-mounted, twin-turbo powertrain perfectly compliments the overall balance of the 750S, and when its 552kW and 800Nm (fed through a seven-speed automatic) meets the lightweight McLaren, the results are staggering.

The zero to 100km/h dash is dispatched in 2.8 seconds, while 200km/h flashes by in 7.2 seconds. Want to push to 300km/h? You’ll need just 19.8 seconds.

All 2.0-litre Elantras have claimed/combined fuel usage figures of 7.4L/100km. Against this claim I scored a very reasonable 8.0L/100km in my road test of the Active.

The 1.6-litre variants have a marginally better claimed consumption figure of 7.0L/100km against which I scored 9.0L/100km in my test of the Sport. If you’re having fun, expect at least 9.0L or above. That’s a compliment.

All Elantra variants happily consume regular 91RON unleaded and have 50-litre tanks. Good stuff.

McLaren says you can expect 12.2L/100km on the combined cycle, with emissions pegged at 276g/km. But you can also expect to win the lottery. It doesn’t make it likely.

It’s hard to imagine how softly you’d have to treat the 750S to get anywhere near those numbers, but I know you almost certainly won’t. The temptation is simply too great.

All Elantra variants are great to drive. They share excellent suspension and steering characteristics, lending them a rewarding experience in the corners while not being too stiff or too soft over bumps.

The 2.0 litre variants offer, well, acceptable power, even if they're a little on the thrashy side, and their ride comfort is boosted by sensibly sized alloy wheels and soft rubber.

Sport variants are genuinely a blast to drive. The 1.6-litre turbo has small amounts of lag, but is otherwise strong through 1500-4500rpm. Torque steer is present but manageable, and even adds a little to the excitement.

Thick (and pricey) Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres (225/40R18s) help keep the Elantra Sport planted and surprisingly grippy through the corners.

Road noise is acceptable but not stellar across the range. The same goes for the 10.6-meter turning circle.

Truly gone are the days where you should question whether Korean cars can be fun; the Sport and Sport premium do a better job of channeling the characteristics of Japanese sports sedans of the '90s and '00s better than most current Japanese nameplates.

On the downside, the silly flared body kit on the Sport variants limit ground clearance on ramps or speedbumps and can be prone to bottoming out. This combines with the easily scratched giant wheels to make for some nervous driving.

Usually we wouldn’t be dedicating much space to the kilogram’s shaved here and there off the total weight of a vehicle, but it’s important in this case.

In the 750S, that starts with a bespoke carbon-fibre monocoque platform, which is not only light, but also so inherently stiff that even chopping the roof off for the Spider version required no extra bracing or supports, and only marginally impacts the performance figures.

Then, there are the lightest alloys ever fitted to a series McLaren, which reduce unsprung weight by up to 14 kilos.

That rear wing isn’t just bigger, but also lighter, saving another 1.6 kilos, the carbon-fibre-backed seats save a whopping 17.5kg, the new suspension springs shave another two-or-so kilograms. The list goes on and on.

All up, they've found 30 kilos between 720S and 750S, which is now 1389kg total.

The result is a vehicle that feels endlessly athletic — light, lithe and perfectly balanced — but also one that, when you’re feeding on that endless power, feels as though it might suddenly take flight.

Flat-footed acceleration is laugh-out-loud fun, the tyres scrabbling for grip with each donkey-kick gear shift, even past 100km/h, with the rear end shifting around slightly as the Pirelli rubber deals with the physics of what’s happening. It’s loud, visceral and intoxicating, and you absolutely never tire of it.

But the magic in this McLaren is that it's more than just brutally fast in a straight line, it's also one of the most engaging vehicles I've ever driven, and one that provides a near-telepathic connection to the car, its tyres, and the tarmac below.

The more time you spend behind the wheel, the more tameable it feels, and even at warp speeds (somewhere above 270km/h), you feel connected and in control, owing mostly the open lines of communication between the tyres, the steering and the driver.

Also ferocious is the McLaren's braking force, combining carbon ceramic discs with a rear wing that doubles as a jet-style air brake, and stamping on the brake pedal produces vision-blurring force that leaves you feeling like you're not just stopping, but hurtling backwards through time.

So, race track, tick. But away from it, the McLaren – with its 'Proactive Chassis Control' hydraulic suspension – is surprisingly compliant when you want it to be, with its 'Comfort' drive mode delivering exactly that, softening the important bits so you don’t rattle yourself to death on the freeway.

If the 720S was a benchmark, then this 750S is something else entirely, shifting the needle in every important way to create a vehicle that sparks pure, unadulterated joy from behind the wheel.

Safety systems hardly abound here, and nor is McLaren or ANCAP likely to pony up for the 750S for crash testing.

You do get front and front-side airbags, front and rear parking sensors and a reversion camera, as well as a handy nose-lift function which should stop you scraping over steep speed bumps and the like.

Hyundai covers its range with an on-par five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty promise offered by most of the competition. It is outdone by its mechanical twin, the Kia Cerato,with its seven-year warranty.

Hyundai’s fixed service program is one of its strong suits, with service pricing on turbo Elantra models locked between reasonable $273 to $460 costs per visit, locked all the way out to 168 months/210,000 kilometres. And even beyond that there's the optional pre-paid ‘iCare’ packages. Costs are slightly less for 2.0-litre cars.

The 750S is covered by a standard three-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, which is fully transferable.

Owners can also spring for an extended warranty, which can cover the McLaren for up to 15 years.

Servicing is required every 12 months or 15,000km.