Every important aspect of the car has been upgraded. Power has been increased to more than 450 horsepower by the addition of a Mangnuson Products supercharger – hence the SC part of the moniker – and a liquid-to-air intercooler. The Mangnuson blower pushes six to seven pounds of boost into the 3.8-liter V-6 engine’s intake for 35- to 45-percent power improvement.

The debut of Hyundai’s Sonata midsize sedan caused a brief halt to design work on Nissan’s fifth-generation Altima, a top executive at the Japanese auto maker reveals. “Clearly, we referenced the Sonata when we were going through the design process,” Andy Palmer, Nissan executive vice president-global planning, marketing and Infiniti Div., tells WardsAuto in an interview here. “We even delayed development by a short amount just to check that the (new Altima’s) proportions were right, the (package) was right (and that) the product overall was right.”

Hyundai made U.S. car buyers and the industry take notice three years ago with the release of its latest, aggressively styled Sonata. “I’d say they are our major point of reference,” Palmer says.