Hyundai’s Strangest Model Is Leading The Company’s Latest Design Direction

Whether you like the hydrogen fuel source or not, Hyundai is really hoping you like the look of the 2026 Hyundai Nexo revealed last week. Because that’s what the next generation of Hyundai’s conventional models is going to look like. The head of Hyundai’s South Korean design center has said that more models with a similar design will hit the market as soon as the end of the year, though they won’t exactly be copies of the oddball Hyundai alternative-fuel vehicle.

Art Of Steel Muscles In On Parametric Pixels

Hyundai calls the new design language Art of Steel. The brand describes it like this: “Steel’s natural formability takes shape in a bold, structured design—celebrating its strength and beauty through form.”

Related

2026 Hyundai Nexo Is Bigger, Faster, And Way Cooler Than Before

It’s still solely a hydrogen vehicle.

Company senior VP and design center head Simon Loasby explained why it debuted an all-new styling language with what will inevitably be a low-production model. “It actually helps that customer group that they’ve got something special,” Loasby said, via Drive Australia. “It is unique, it is special. It’s hydrogen fuel cell, whoa. It doesn’t have to look like everything else.”

Toyota has used a similar line of thinking with its own alternative fuel models. Not just the fuel-cell Mirai, but the hybrid Prius, which only took on conventional design in its most recent generation.

Related

Hyundai’s Hydrogen Concept Has Come To Life – Just Not The One You Think

Hyundai’s fuel cell electric vehicle, the Nexo, will be taking on Santa Fe-like looks, but with its own flair.

Loasby said “You will see [more of] this design language of Art of Steel through late this year, next year – you’ll see more examples of that.” Asked to confirm if that would include the next-generation Tucson crossover, he answered “I’m not going to tell you, but you will see.”

Hyundai Will Avoid A Family Of Twins

The designer also explained how this styling and the Parametric Pixel language debuted by the Ioniq 5 could co-exist. “I would think chess pieces,” he said. “We’ve got our chess pieces where we deliberately […] have a base which connects them. The base can be Art of Steel, it can be pixels, that connects. So you will see some spices which are the same, but the rest of the dish is quite different sometimes, for different customers.”

Loasby said that Hyundai won’t have a family look like other brands, where models can become different sizes of the same package. He acknowledged that it was a challenge for stylists to forge a brand connection this way.

Related

Hyundai Ioniq 9 Designer Took Inspiration From An Obscure Audi City Car

The designer of the Hyundai Ioniq 9 spoke about his inspirations for Hyundai’s largest EV, and a possible N version.

“Most companies don’t do it like this,” he said. “Most companies have one look and it goes across the whole portfolio. And for us, we have such a big portfolio that we want to make sure both regional, and for customer groups, we can offer something different, but unique, where the son or daughter might come in and say, ‘Oh yeah, mine looks different to yours, but it’s in the same brand. I don’t necessarily want to drive my dad’s car in small [size].”

Source: Drive.com.au