);Hyundai has taken its charming Inster city car and dialed it up to eleven with the Insteroid—a pumped-up, attitude-laden concept that feels like it just crashed out of a video game and onto the tarmac. Billed as an exercise in ‘unrestrained creativity’ to forge a deeper emotional connection with the brand, the Insteroid transforms the new Inster EV into a muscle-bound showpiece that thrives on sheer audacity.
Senior Vice President and Head of Hyundai’s Design Centre, Simon Loasby, describes it as ‘pure fun,’ a vehicle created simply to push the boundaries of what Hyundai can do with a small car. According to Nicola Danza, Exterior Design Manager for Hyundai Europe, the project was an instant hit. ‘The design presentation for this was probably the easiest of my career,’ Danza recalls. ‘It was so cool from the first sketches that when they were shown to the CEO, he just said “build it” and walked back out of the room.’
The Insteroid borrows some of the aggressive, no-holds-barred styling cues from Hyundai’s RN22e concept, a high-performance EV that already looked like a rally-bred Inster on steroids. But the Insteroid is its own beast entirely. Built primarily as a showcase rather than a performance machine, it is designed to move only at low speeds for maneuvering—though that doesn’t stop it from looking like a track-hardened racer. A widened track, oversized tires wrapped around ‘track-optimized’ wheels, and a rear wing so massive it could double as a workbench all contribute to the exaggerated stance. Integrated vents in the swollen wheel arches help release pressure from the wheel wells, adding both functional and aesthetic aggression.
