Hyundai to open new test centre at Nurburgring
We’ve recently heard that Hyundai is in the process of investing somewhere around seven million dollars to build a new test centre at the Nurburgring in Germany. Now this is interesting news from two points of view, one of them being that this further shows the South Korean car maker’s commitment to improve the quality and performance of their future vehicle, but it may also be a much-needed life-line for the racing track about whose financial problems we’ve reported in several other articles in the past.
Senior Vice President of Hyundai Motor Europe, Allan Rushforth has said that this new test centre represents an expression of the company’s goal of focusing on improving the “customer experience” of vehicles, with particular detail to how they ride and handle – because according to him this is a very important consideration of drivers in Europe as well as other markets.
The rather significant investment in the center is expected to pay dividends by contributing to enhancing the perception of the Hyundai brand and its key competitive competence in Europe.
All the new vehicles that Hyundai will design and develop for Europe will be tested at the Nurburgring after the construction of the 3050-square-metre facility is done. The driving data and driving impressions that will be derived from the track testing will then be used by the engineers at Hyundai’s R&D centre in Russelheim, Germany, to improve driving dynamics, durability and reliability.
To get an idea of the importance of this center, think that almost ninety-five percent of the 444,000 Hyundais sold in Europe last year were designed and engineered in Russelheim – this includes the i30, i40 and ix35.
Th Nurburgring used to be the domain of only the highest performance sports cars, however is has in recent decades become the pre-eminent test facility for new mainstream passenger cars – but the recent economic troubles have put its function under question.
