It's getting there; The Hyundai Elantra GT is really close, and for the price, maybe it has already arrived.(Brief Article)

Remember the Mitsubishi Mirage from, say, 10 years ago? It was a pretty good car for its time: Not a bad-looking little hatchback, it was flingable and fun to drive, if a little crude. At less than $9,000, it was cheap, too.

Which basically sums up the 2002 Hyundai Elantra GT (or should we say the 2001.5 model, as Hyundai calls it?): Pretty good-looking, reasonably fun to drive and priced better than right, though the magic number on prices has moved north a little.

The Elantra line was redesigned for the 2001 model year. The four-door sedan went on sale in October 2000, and the five-door GT came out last summer. It could just be the rarity of five-door hatchbacks in this country, but the Elantra GT looks sort of like a small Saab 9-3 five-door (especially from the rear three-quarter view), which isn't a bad thing. Then again, several folks around here have called it ``cute,'' which could of course doom the car forever.

The five-door hatchback body style is fantastic and practical-we'd love to see more automakers go that route-and most essentials needed for a decent driver come standard. The list includes gas-filled shocks, front and rear antiroll bars, four-wheel disc brakes, rack-and-pinion steering and alloy wheels. You'll also get leather seats, leather-wrapped steering wheel and gearshift knob, cruise control, remote keyless entry and an AM/FM/CD stereo, all standard.

Hyundai's 2.0-liter four powers the GT, producing 140 hp at 6000 rpm and 133 lb-ft of torque at 4800 rpm. The engine in our test car was coupled to a five-speed manual transmission, and a four-speed automatic is optional. This is not the smoothest engine on the planet (it gets downright intrusive at more than 3000 rpm) and ...