While Hyundai brought a pair of pretty standard tuner cars to the 2017 SEMA show, it also displayed a couple of weird ones, and the brand’s stand was all the better for it. Bisimoto Engineering?s HyperEconiq Ioniq takes performance engineering and puts it in the service of efficiency, while Rockstar Performance Garage?s Santa Fe Sport turns a soft-roader into a pretty credible go-anywhere machine.

Bisi Ezerioha is best known around the halls of SEMA for stuffing wildly powerful engines into unsuspecting vehicles. With the HyperIoniq, based on Hyundai?s Ioniq hybrid, his company flipped the script and applied years of tuning expertise to the task of squeezing maximum efficiency out of the commuter special. Most immediately noticeable are the rear fender spats meant to increase aerodynamic efficiency. Set up with a pulse-chamber exhaust system, Racepack OBD-monitoring electronics with an interactive OBD cluster, Carbon Revolution 19-by-5-inch one-piece carbon-fiber wheels, Buddy Club aluminum calipers, Recaro Pole Position racing seats, and a Progress Performance dropped coil-over suspension, it also sports enhanced generators, all in the pursuit of the mighty mpg. Bisimoto claims that the mods are good for 80 miles per gallon in regular driving. We managed 52 mpg out of the stock Ioniq hybrid in our highway testing. A 28-mpg jump is serious business, but then again, Bisi has pretty much dedicated his life to posting crazy numbers.
On the other side of the divide li...