- The sedan was restored for the Canadian TV show Roulez au Suivant and gifted to a viewer.
- The sedan was previously owned by a delivery driver who averaged over 66,400 miles annually.
- Hyundai Canada supplied the TV show with over 100 new parts for the restoration.
When we bring you stories of cars that have been restored, typically these are classics that are rare, highly coveted, and extremely expensive. The following 2008 Hyundai Elantra is none of those things and yet, it was recently the subject of an exhaustive restoration in Canada.
This Elantra is a 2008 model that passed the one-million-kilometer (621,371-mile) mark in 2020 and was donated to Quebec TV show Roulez au Suivant, hosted by automotive journalist Antoine Joubert. A partnership between Hyundai Canada and the team from the show then led to the car being overhauled and given away to a lucky viewer.
Read: Hyundai Denies $10K Warranty Repair For Elantra N, Blames Owner For Over-Revving
To bring new life into the aging Elantra, Hyundai provided the Roulez au Suivant team with over 100 new parts. These included a brand-new engine short block and various other mechanical components but for the most part, the car’s original parts have been retained. A team of experts then stripped the car’s paint and resprayed it in the same shade of Performance Blue that’s become the trademark of the Hyundai N division.
Completing the blue paint are black front and rear bumper add-ons, as well as new side skirt extensions, complete with bright red accents. The Elantra’s interior has also been thoroughly refurbished and the odometer reset to zero as it stopped counting at 999,999 km.
Quebec local Éloïc Lachance was chosen as the lucky winner of the car from hundreds of applicants. The 16-year-old submitted his own application and unbeknownst to him, his mother and his brother also submitted applications for him. The 2008 Elantra is the 16-year-old’s first car.
Most of the mileage of the car was raked up by delivery driver Jocelyn Roy. He purchased the sedan in 2011 from Hyundai Granby when it had ~18,600 miles (30,000 km) on the clock and on average, drove it ~66,400 miles (107,000 km) per year until he sold it back to the dealer in 2020, who then went on to sell it directly to Hyundai Canada.
