By Nick Syn

LOCAL HYUNDAI DISTRIBUTOR Komoco Motors is gearing up to preview the brand new Sonata at the end of this month. The new car will be powered by a 166bhp 2.4-litre four-cylinder engine. The Korean market gets the option of a 2.0-litre engine but Hyundai is still deciding on whether to make this powerplant available for overseas markets.

This shouldn’t pose too much of a problem here, as competitive pricing should see the Sonata favourably pitted against rivals like the 2.0-litre Nissan Cefiro and Toyota Camry.

The specs for local models have been confirmed: the Sonata will get manual air-con controls and a single driver’s side airbag to keep costs down – it’s provisionally priced at $83,888 with COE. Look out for Singapore’s first road test of the new Sonata in the next issue of CarBuyer, out January 22.