2020 Hyundai Veloster drops manual from Turbo Ultimate, adds features to R-Spec

It’s good news, bad news time for fans of sporty cars with manual transmissions. We’ll start with the bad news: The 2020 Hyundai Veloster in the high-feature Turbo Ultimate trim is losing its manual transmission. That means the only way to get the Veloster with the 1.6-liter turbo engine and a manual is to get the base R-Spec trim.

The good news is that the R-Spec trim has picked up a couple of welcome safety features. Now standard is rear cross-traffic detection, and better yet, blind-spot monitoring. As we pointed out in a video review, the Veloster has pretty terrible rear blind spots, so this is a great addition. That being said, it’s still a bit disappointing that there’s no longer a way to get a manual-equipped Veloster with niceties such as a sunroof, heated seats, leather, a heads-up display or rain-sensing wipers.

Of course, a manual transmission is still the only way to get a Veloster N, so at least there’s that. It has become more expensive, though, with the price rising from $27,820 to $28,320. The N Performance Package that adds bigger brakes, wheels, adjustable exhaust, 25 horsepower and an electronically-controlled mechanical limited-slip differential is still the same $2,100, though.

Other Velosters see very small increases in price, if any at all. The base naturally aspirated 2.0 model climbs $100 to $19,520. The 2.0 Premium goes up just $50 to $23,720. The Turbo R-Spec is up $250 to $24,070. The regular Turbo is up by $50 to $26,370, and it picks up wireless phone charging as a new standard feature. The Turbo Ultimate’s price is unchanged at $29,070 when comparing the dual-clutch automatic versions, but is a fair bit pricier than the discontinued manual version that started at $27,570. Hyundai hasn’t announced availability, but since the pricing chart says it’s effective as of June 13, 2019, we expect 2020 models are probably on their way to dealers if not there already.