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Pics & first impressions: My restored 2005 Hyundai Sonata V6 comes home

11th November 2024, 15:02 by Deepankar Sadekar

Floor it, and she lunges forward with a restrained roar from the V6, and you hit 3 digit speeds in no time.

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Homecoming:

After months of scouting, spending, waiting, troubleshooting, waiting, and waiting some more, the Sonata is finally home! She returned on 1st November but I couldn't write up since I was busy with our firstborn

Without further ado, here are some pictures.

Interiors:

How is it like to drive?

In a word - dreamlike. The car purrs to life in a single crank, moves forward without a sound, and you feel shielded from the outside world when the windows are rolled up.

Press the throttle though, and she seems eager to move, always waiting for the next tap to drop a gear, ready to pounce...

Floor it, and she lunges forward with a restrained roar from the V6, and you hit 3 digit speeds in no time. This car is seriously powerful! I'm having to re-learn my throttle inputs, coming from a car with half the cylinders and a third of the power!

During a routine traffic check, a policeman stopped me and straightaway started checking out the car itself. After a thorough look round back and front and inside, he commented that it was a "filmy car". I cracked up and explained how it was a year-long ordeal to get it to this spec. (It didn't save me from paying a fine for not having a valid PUC though)

While there is some minor work pending, it shouldn't take more than a week to sort it out.

Epilogue:

Our family experience with Korean cars goes back quite far. We owned a Daewoo Cielo, and one of my uncles a Matiz. I have particularly fond memories of the Cielo because I thought it was a sedate, boring family car until my brother (then in his teens) once snuck me out on a night drive with it and actually floored the throttle and redlined the car. It was quite the rush despite having only 80bhp or so (how much does a 10yr old need, anyway?)

Our family was actually contemplating purchasing a Sonata brand new, back in the day when it was launched. I remember seeing brochures of the car when my late grandfather was considering it.
Thus the story turns a full circle as I see this car parked in my driveway. The feeling is settling down but it still feels surreal sometimes. I look back everytime I walk past it.

It has been quite the ordeal getting to this point, and it's certainly not everyone's cup of tea. It would've been impossible without my gearhead mechanic and his relentless drive to take things to perfection. To give you an idea, I just expressed my wish to have black rims but with a polished outer rim, and he found contacts who would be able to do it. I met them and they refused, stating it was too detailed work. He took the initiative without my pressing, and spent 3 weeks researching on buffing pads, building a custom buffing tool, and actually buffing out the rim to my liking.

That, coupled with my scouting skills and my tendency to take above-average risks, has paid dividends as the car is good to drive and we have a bountiful spares cache to cover any issues that may crop up in the future.

The way forward:

I'm going to drive it! I plan to drive out 100km away next weekend to meet family, and I'll report on the highway manners of the Sonata. I also want to do a proper video with a walk around, covering the driving experience and the features of the car. Let's see if I get around to it soon. The spare parts are scattered in various boxes; I'll organise those by labeling and packing.

Thanks everyone for your support! The Korean cat is ready to prowl. I'll post some long term updates once I've racked up some kilometres!