2007 Hyundai Tiburon
Not so long ago Hyundai released the I30N which took the automotive world by storm, exceeding expectations in almost every review. This however was not Hyundai’s first stab at a fun sports car. Going back 15 years there was the Hyundai Tiburon, the word Tiburon (with slight variation) meaning Shark in Spanish, making the cars intentions clear from the start, it was here to dominate its competition such as Toyota’s Celica and Honda’s Integra Type R and later Type S... but what happened?
Unfortunately at the time the 2-door sports car market was dying off, cars such as the Nissan 200SX and Honda Prelude had already gone, with the Celica soon to follow in 2005 and the Integra in 2006. In an almost non-existent market it was hard to make any kind of impact especially with the beginning price of the Hyundai Tiburon being higher than its already established competitors, and by the time prices had dropped in 2007 it was too late and the Tiburon‘s short lived run was over by 2008.
Specifically today I’m driving a 6-speed manual version of the 2007 Hyundai Tiburon, which was the last design before its discontinuation in 2008. The Tiburon derived from the Hyundai Coupe, which was called the Tiburon in other places around the globe, I feel as though the Coupe was never an appealing car to look at and unfortunately the performance matched. However, in my opinion Hyundai got the design pretty spot on for the most part with the later design(s); the rear looking quite modern for the time with its dual-exit exhaust system with a sporty-looking rear fog light in the centre surrounded by a subtle plastic rear diffuser (a similar layout to that of the 86/BRZ), an attractive sized wing and distinct looking tail lights to finish off the clean look.
At the front the Tiburon comes down to personal taste with quite a unique looking front facia. The bonnet and headlights are both well designed and aggressive especially with the colour matched eyelids on the one I tested. The Tiburon I tested also had yellow tinted fog lights added, red painted callipers and gloss black painted front grille, which i’d say is a must, making the front-end of the car to me slightly resemble the brand new Porsche 911 992 front end as far as the black front grille goes. On the front too there is also a Tiburon badge instead of a generic Hyundai one, this tells me the car was something special to the brand and its a pretty cool feature too since not many cars have their own individual badge in more recent times.
The overall side profile of the car isn’t the car’s most appealing feature with some sharp lines not particularly matching the overall curvaceous shape to well. The 17”x 7” OEM wheels are quite a stylish and sporty design, however they could probably do with being an extra inch larger in diameter to match the reasonably sized car that the Tiburon is and get rid of some of that wheel gap and typical tuck of the wheels stock cars in general have. A worthy mention as well is about the weight of the bonnet and boot-lid, unnecessarily heavy and should have been made of a lighter material.
Interior wise the Tiburon has a decent amount of room in the back as far as 2+2 seater 2-door coupes’ go. Hyundai too did a great job making it a place for the driver with its red accented sport leather seats, tilt and slide sunroof, cleanly displayed analogue speedometer with chrome rings, easy to navigate controls and on my tester an aftermarket touchscreen head-unit with Bluetooth connectivity and everything from the regular radio to Apple CarPlay. Boot space is very sufficient due to the lift-back design easily fitting a full load of groceries and if more room was required the rear seats fold down. Another pleasant feature is the Tiburon logo appearing again on both the driver’s side and passenger side floor mats.
The Tiburon was in a league of its own when it came to the engine, in Australia we only got the top spec 2.7-litre Delta G6BA DOHC V6 engine which had 170BHP and 245NM of torque being sent to the front wheels, giving the car a reasonable, but not so impressive, 0-100 time of 7.6 seconds. The competition rather than having 6 cylinder engines, stuck with only 4, thus giving the Tiburon the torque advantage making it a very usable car on a daily basis. Now only having 170BHP for a car that weighs 1,376kgs doesn’t sound like much at all, but with the decent amount of torque being available from as low as 2,500rpm and pulling all the way through the mid range it never quite feels like the power is lacking, that is until it tries reaching its 6,500rpm redline. At about 5,800rpm you can feel the torque drop off and with not much horsepower you can feel the car isn’t pulling with that previous surge of power, in saying that though, it is still worth winding it out to redline at times to hear the roaring sound that the V6 power-plant produces. The Tiburon however isn’t made for high revving like its competition, it’s more a budget GT car that really enjoys sitting around the mid to three-quarter rev range. It’s also worth mentioning how reliable the V6 engine is too, my tester has 183,XXXkms and has no leaks or issues to mention. I also know of one that took years of hard driving and the engine also never had an issue, so based off my experience a very well-built and reliable motor.
Driving the 2007 model Tiburon was quite surprising, at times it can be quite temperamental; but does still manage to deliver a rewarding driving experience in the end. Myself having originally owned a 1997 Toyota Celica and a 2002 Honda Integra Type R, both being front wheel drive, I’d hopped into the Tiburon with the expectation of shocking torque steer with the extra torque the car has on offer. To my surprise this wasn’t at all the case, the car actually remained quite neutral compared to other front wheel drive cars id been in from the time period, torque steer was still present when going full throttle at peak rpm’s and if giving it a lot in first gear, but compared to my previous expectations it was very little. I believe this comes down to the extra weight that the V6 has over the front axle making the steering feel heavier and therefore keeping the vehicle more planted to the ground.
Mechanical grip in this car was also surprisingly solid around each twisty corner, especially considering the lack of grip from the budget tyres on the car and the cars inherit body roll on the stock suspension, I was impressed especially since I come from a GT86 which is known for its excellent handling ability.
The 6-speed manual transmission has long throws and I found it not overly direct when placing it in to gears, sometimes having to really force it in. The gearbox wasn’t simple to upshift quickly either at times, downshifting however was rather satisfying, but you can forget about heal and toeing since the brake and accelerator pedals are spaced far too closely to each other. The clutch on the other hand was light and easy to use, would be beneficial for daily driving or learning manual on. The brake pedal felt rather vague when braking hard, that can also be just due to age and pad wear too.
Overall as a complete package it gets most things right for me especially considering its price bracket of between $5K-$10K AUD nowadays, making it a perfect first car. Its hard to find a good example of something better for that price point considering the Tiburon’s were around the $40K mark new, it really is a bargain with the majority being in great condition, since they rarely ended up in bad hands due to not being overly well-known and expensive until quite recently. So if you’re on the market for a first manual car, I’d certainly recommend checking out the Hyundai Tiburon.