What is America’s greatest race? While the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500 are frequently the top contenders, don’t count out the inimitable Pikes Peak hill climb. After all, what other legendary race can have dry roads at the start of the course and snow at the end? Hyundai is no stranger to the mountain, and for the 2024 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, it’s going all-out with the Ioniq 5 N TA. Think of this as the GT3 R of Hyundais.
This may come as a surprise to anyone who hasn’t been following, but the overall record and the open class record at Pikes Peak are both held by electric vehicles — the Volkswagen I.D. R and Ford Supervan 4.2, respectively. It’s easy to see why. The hillclimb course rises 4,720 feet in elevation, and since air gets less dense the higher you go, a naturally-aspirated car making 500 horsepower at the bottom of the course would lose a whopping 70 horsepower once it reaches the top. While turbocharging is an effective way of compensating for altitude, it’s not quite as effective as not being affected by altitude in the first place.
While Hyundai’s fielding two stock Ioniq 5 N crossovers at Pikes Peak, the two we’re seriously interested in aren’t stock at all. Software tweaks mean the TA’s rear motor makes an extra 37 horsepower over the one in the standard Ioniq 5 N, but this special race car ought to be a whole lot louder than the production version. To provide driver feedback and warning on-course that a car is coming, Hyundai has boosted the fake internal combustion engine noise played outside the car to north of 120 decibels. That is, to use a technical term, dickhead loud, but it should be effective up on the mountain.
Speaking of effectiveness, the aerodynamic package on the Ioniq 5 N TA is certifiably nuts. From a splitter the size of a dining room table to a massive wing, this thing takes the visual treatment of the eN1 cup car and elevates it to full-blown insanity. It doesn’t even have side mirrors because those just add drag.
In addition to the lairy aero bits, the Ioniq 5 N TA also features a full rollcage built to spec, Advan 005 slicks, three-way adjustable dampers, fire suppression, and all the miscellaneous safety gear you can possibly imagine, but it still boasts a mostly stock powertrain. Same battery, same motors, same as it ever was.
While results on race day are anything but certain, it’s going to be interesting watching these things blast up the mountain. We’re entering an exciting new era of racing, where paradigms get reset, propulsion technologies battle it out, and legends get born. The more manufacturers aboard, the merrier, and we’re stoked to see Hyundai taking part.
(Photo credits: Hyundai)
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PP lost its place as an unrivaled test of race cars when they paved the 13 mile top section in 2011. I understand they were forced to do it via the Sierra Club “gravel pollution” lawsuit, but as a race it was way cooler before. The ultimate tire and chassis setup challenge is no more.
For complicated legal reasons I am no longer welcome in the land of the free, if I were I would really really like to enter my Bentley in the Pikes Peak competition. It is that sort of thinking that gets one deported from places.
Can we trade you for someone else who, say, for complicated legal reasons is now banned from traveling OUT of the US to 37 countries?
I remember playing PGR3 on Xbox, firing up the Bentley, driving the wrong way on the track and seeing if we could smash into the other players hard enough to crash their game. Those were the days.
Fun non-car fact: the first name of the guy for whom Pike’s Peak is currently named is “Zebulon.”
And it’s not the only Pike’s Peak out there. The Pike’s in northeast Iowa (overlooking the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers) is on a bluff 500′ over the Mississippi that Pike came across on his first expedition in 1805 (he and his crew got to the Colorado site on his 1806 expedition). There’s some excellent drives to be had up in NE Iowa and SW Wisconsin.
IMO it’s the 24 hours of Daytona…
Seconded
I wish they had done an Ioniq 6 N first but the “crossover” version will likely sell better so might as well direct the fast car advertising money at that I guess.
To my eye, the 6 could possibly be the ugliest car of the current century. It’s like Hyundai took the original Panamera and decided to somehow triple how ugly it is
At what height off the ground does the Ioniq 5 become a hatchback, and no longer a crossover?
Stock height?
It’s all about the “SUV” regulations- I can’t remember them right now but it’s AWD or other features and certain geometry. Our Kia Niro EV is marketed as a crossover but is technically a small station wagon.
Could be weirder, my IL title for my RX8 calls it a “4D SDN” and my IS300 wagon a “Utility” vehicle just like my Yukon XL 2500 did…
You remind me that Mustang’s lists it as “sedan, 2-door”
My Ridgeline was registered as a truck, and I really tried to argue it was a crossover to save $55 a year, but the state didn’t care about my “facts”
> tried to argue it was a crossover
See, that was your mistake. You had nowhere left to negotiate. If you’d come in strong on the “personal watercraft” and angle, they’d have met you at crossover just to get you out of their office.
It is WAY bigger in person than you think, personally it was a bit of a shock when I first saw one, because my brain was programmed to recognize that shape as a small-ish hatchback. That it definitely ain’t.
Somehow, going this wild with it looks pretty much right on an Ioniq 5. Maybe because it looks like it could have come out of Need For Speed Underground and had someone pile on the visual mods, but I think this is one of the better cars they could choose for this treatment.
It’s like the SuperVan… If you squint you can kinda see that it might be a Transit. But this could easily give the impression “I could buy a body kit and make any I5 look like this”