Hyundai Will Return To Pikes Peak This Year

The list of manufacturer-backed entries to this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is growing. Just a few days ago, we heard about Ford’s plan to send a modified F-150 Lightning up the famous 12.4-mile, 156-turn course this June, and now we have confirmation it’ll be joined by Hyundai.

The South Korean manufacturer has announced it’ll enter four cars, alongside naming three of its drivers: 11-time Pikes Peak class winner Paul Dallenbach, four-time class winner Paul Shute, and Dani Sordo, who it’ll be pilfering from its World Rally Championship effort.

1992 Hyundai Scoupe Turbo Pikes Peak

Till Wartenberg, the head of Hyundai’s N performance brand and its motorsport efforts, said: “We have selected top experts like Robin Shute and Paul Dallenbach who have won the event overall and in class 15 times. Both these drivers have an incredible track record and know the climb well. The addition of Hyundai Motorsports WRC driver Dani Sordo is very exciting and will help us engage a global audience for the hill climb.”

Meanwhile, Randy Parker, CEO of Hyundai America, said: “[Pikes Peak] has stood the test of time because the mountain never relents. The weather makes getting a clean run extremely difficult and to conquer the mountain everything must go perfectly. A tremendous amount of preparation and a little bit of luck is required to break and set records.”

The fourth driver remains under wraps for now, as do the cars Hyundai will be entering. Given its efforts to reinvent its N sub-brand as an electric performance pioneer, and the proliferation of electric cars at Pikes Peak in recent years, we’d bet on at least one of them being a full EV of some sort – perhaps some kind of modified Ioniq 5 N?

The cars will be run by Bryan Herta Autosport, which currently runs Hyundai’s North American touring car effort in addition to entering IndyCar in collaboration with Andretti.

The brand has a long history on the mountain, first entering in 1992 in the Showroom Stock class with the Scoupe Turbo – known as the S-Coupe in the UK. In recent years, it’s moved into rather more specialised machinery, including the JE09 and PM580, V6 turbo-powered cars that looked like baby Le Mans racers; and a heavily modified Genesis Coupe that won the event overall in 2012.

It’s not clear yet whether anything Hyundai’s bringing this year will be able to challenge for that overall win, but whatever it sends up the mountain, it’ll have some serious competition. It’s shaping up to be a vintage year for the infamous hillclimb.