The well received new Sonata is spearheading Hyundai's North American sales efforts this year, with the South Korean automaker selling more than 200,000 examples of the mid-size sedan in the U.S. and Canada in 2010, setting a new sales record. More importantly, the four-door saloon helped the company deliver more than 530,000 vehicles in the United States and over 110,000 in Canada for the first time ever.

"Sonata has delivered some pretty incredible results for us this year," says John Krafcik, Hyundai Motor America president and CEO. "Sonata is the Hyundai brand and it's appropriate that it has led our best year ever. Sonata's innovation has reset the most hotly contested, largest segment in the U.S. car market, with Sonata delivering more year-over-year retail sales growth – about 90,000 units – than any other car in the entire industry."

According to Hyundai, more than 70 percent of Sonata buyers previously owned a car from a brand other than Hyundai with more than 20 percent coming from Honda, Toyota and Nissan.

"This car has meant so much to the success of our brand and our dealers," says Krafcik. "While cars like Camry and Accord spend more than 50 days on a dealer lot, Sonata leads the segment in 'days-to-turn' through the first three quarters. The average Sonata is sold in 16 days."

The Hyundai CEO also added that the Sonata vastly improved its fleet sales record moving from sixth place in its segment last November with a mere 5% retail share, to third, averaging 13-to-16% retail segment share for most of the year, behind Accord and Camry.

In the States, the new Sonata is offered with three engine choices, a 2.4-liter naturally aspirated four producing 198HP or 200HP (depending on the version), a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-banger with 274HP and a 2.4-liter hybrid variant delivering a combined output of 209HP.

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