Gabe Mendoza – 2020 Hyundai Veloster N Performance Package

Ask Gabe Mendoza what kind of vehicle he likes and the answer will always be the same: something small, turbo or supercharged, gets good mileage and is nimble as all out. His latest car, a 2020 Veloster N dressed in the color Racing Red, is pretty much the embodiment of all of that criteria.

Gabe puts those attributes to the test on a daily basis as he battles the California highways driving from Chino to Orange County for work and he enjoys something that can zip between traffic, but sips the fuel. “This little car is pretty fast, and economical”, said Gabe, “and if I want even more performance all I have to do is switch modes to ‘Performance’ and it scoots! When I’m driving on the streets I have it in ‘Normal’, when I get on the freeway I put it in ‘Sport’ or ‘Custom’ where I’ve made some changes, and when I see a sports car I put it in ‘N’ mode so that they can hear my exhaust crackle. And best part of the car is that I can drive with the hammer down and still get an average of 23 MPG!” Adding to his amazement is the fact that this Veloster, although having an additional 100 horsepower, gets the same MPG that his 2016 Veloster got.

So why the iDash SuperGauge? “I personally didn’t want to have 8 gauges spread out on my dashboard so that I could see what I wanted. I just wanted something that was a clean and tidy setup. The thing is that the Veloster N has its own performance screen on the infotainment system that can already show ‘TURBO’ as 0 to 20 psi, ‘TORQUE’ as 0 to 300 and ‘POWER’ as 0 to 280. It’s not very informative though, because it just has a line with nothing in between that can show the actual number of what I’m making. Because I’ve done some mods to the car the power and torque peg at their highest numbers. With the iDash SuperGauge it tells me exactly how much boost I’m making, and with horsepower it tells me that I’m making 315!” He also likes the iDash because he can set up alarms on things like his oil temp, and he uses the shift light mode all of the time.

Gabe closed by saying “The way that I have it mounted looks factory to me. It totally doesn’t look out of place, and the fact that I can color match it to my dash gauges make it look right at home.”