This might come as a surprise, but Hyundai — yes, that Hyundai, the one that makes your aunt’s Tucson — has been flirting with mid-engine madness for over a decade. Before the world fell in love with the Ioniq 5’s pixelated charm, the Korean giant was quietly tinkering away on something rather more exotic: the RM, or Racing Midship, project.
It all kicked off in 2012. Back then, Hyundai was still the underdog — the brand everyone liked to call “value-driven.” But somewhere deep in Namyang, a few engineers clearly decided “value” was overrated and started shoving engines in the middle of Velosters instead. The RM14 was the first proof of concept: a rear-wheel-drive, mid-engined hot hatch that sounded like the sort of fever dream you’d expect from a YouTube tuner, not a major manufacturer. RM15, RM16, and RM19 followed, each a little more polished, a little more deranged — yet none ever made it to production.
Fast forward to today, and it seems the dream refuses to die. In a recent video from Hyundai’s Korean R&D division, a researcher calmly dropped a bombshell: work is underway on a new MR (midship, rear-wheel-drive) engine. Not a recycled WRC motor. Not a warmed-over V6. Something entirely new — “a very different design and configuration,” they say.
Now, Hyundai’s engineers admit they’re having a bit of a rough time — “many difficulties,” in their words — which is exactly what you want to hear when someone’s trying to build a high-revving, high-performance powerplant from scratch. Still, the determination is unmistakable. The goal? To “develop an engine that meets the performance requirements of the market and to mass-produce it without any problems.” Translation: Hyundai wants to sell a mid-engine sports car. Properly.
The wild card here is what exactly this engine is. Some suspect it’s the same twin-turbo V8 being cooked up for Genesis Magma Racing’s GMR-001 endurance car — an eight-cylinder monster with roots in the WRC’s 1.6-liter four-pot. But Hyundai insists this new lump is something else entirely. If true, that means we might be looking at two separate mid-engine projects in Korea right now: one for racing glory, and another for road-going lunacy.
And then there’s the elephant in the garage — the N Vision 74. Hyundai’s cyberpunk hydrogen supercar concept looks like a DeLorean that spent a year at the Nürburgring and came back with attitude. With its 671 horsepower hybrid setup and sci-fi silhouette, it already has enthusiasts drooling. But imagine this: that body, that attitude, and a screaming, bespoke mid-mounted combustion engine. That’s the kind of car that could rewrite Hyundai’s entire legacy in one go.
Of course, for now, it’s all speculation. Hyundai’s keeping its poker face, and we’re left connecting the dots with greasy fingers and wishful thinking. But if history’s any guide, the brand that once turned the Veloster into a mid-engine test bed might just be crazy enough to pull it off.
Because while everyone else is electrifying their supercars, Hyundai’s engineers are in a lab somewhere, trying to build an engine “that has never existed before.” And honestly? That’s exactly the kind of madness the car world needs right now.
Source: Automotive News
