What Hyundai has managed to do with its N sub-brand is quite incredible.

It doesn't seem all that long ago that Hyundai was little more than the Excel. Then it hired Albert Biermann, fresh from running BMW M, went after the Volkswagen Golf GTI with the i30 N, and somehow came away with something immediately considered a genuine rival to the world's benchmark hot hatch.

Now we're at the point where you learn a new Hyundai N model costs $115,000 and no one really falls off their chair.

There really isn't anything else quite like the new IONIQ 6 N. A Tesla is quick. There's the Porsche Taycan, but by then you're spending considerably more money. And neither manages to be as much fun.

The secret ingredient is an unlikely one: fake engine noises and fake gear shifts. 

Yep, you'll have to hear us out.

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How it works

It's not the first time Hyundai has tried this. It pioneered what it calls N Active Sound+ and N e-Shift with the IONIQ 5 N, and we've since seen a similar idea in the hot Genesis GV60 Magma.

Ordinarily, if someone told you their EV made internal-combustion noises, you'd ask them to put the speaker back in whatever AliExpress box it came in and just buy a petrol car if that's what they really want.

But you don't think this in the IONIQ 6 N, mainly because you're having too much fun.

For your $115,000, you're getting the same weirdly shaped body as the regular IONIQ 6, only now bristling with enough carbon-fibre and sporting thinner headlights to look genuinely mean. I was slightly taken aback when the Hyundai man rolled up in it, to be honest, and driving it along Sydney's M5 felt a little like I'd taken a wrong turn at Le Mans.

It's a wing - not a spoiler.

Underneath are two electric motors producing 448kW and 740Nm, rising to 478kW and 770Nm when you hit the little red N Grin Boost button on the steering wheel. With launch control, 0-100km/h takes 3.2 seconds.

But none of that is really what makes it interesting.

There are three sound settings: Lightspeed mimics a spaceship or fighter jet, Evolution gives you Hyundai's idea of a "futuristic performance-EV" soundtrack, while Ignition does its best impression of a high-revving turbo engine.

I went for Ignition (it's what we know and love, after all). Combined with the fact you can change imaginary gears using the steering-wheel paddles, it's incredibly well done. There's a burble at idle, a greater degree of pick-up higher in the "rev" range, and lifting off even produces pops and crackles. 

Almost as many buttons on the steering wheel as in an F1 car.

The shifts aren't just noises either - there's a jerk in the power delivery with every one, just like you'd get in a combustion car.

In short, Hyundai has spent considerable time and money making its performance EV slower. And less efficient. But better.

The rest of the package

Even without the theatre, the IONIQ 6 N is properly capable. At around 2.2 tonnes it's typically heavy for an EV, but with the weight sitting low and such pointed steering, you don't really feel it.

It rides remarkably well, too. It's stiff, obviously, but never bone-jarring, and while the front skirt looks low enough to take an ant off at the ankles, it cleared ordinary speed humps without requiring you to get out and do trigonometry to determine the best approach angle.

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There's also an almost bewildering amount to adjust: suspension, steering, brakes, power delivery, differential settings, torque distribution, traction control and even a drift optimiser. You could spend an afternoon configuring it without leaving the driveway.

The back is almost limousine-like for legroom, provided you're either a child or don't particularly need a head. That drooping roofline eats heavily into rear headroom, while the boot is about as deep as your letterbox. 
That enormous rear wing does also block a decent chunk of the view behind you, not that you mind.

The verdict

EV owners love to gloat about how fast their cars are, and how a Tesla can cream all sorts of serious machinery away from a set of traffic lights.

But, at risk of sounding like an inspirational placard hanging in someone's entranceway, petrolheads understand that life is about the journey. It's not how quickly you hit 100km/h that matters, but how much fun you had getting there.

That's always been the worrying bit about the electric future. Straight-line speed stopped being difficult a while ago, but speed alone isn't necessarily interesting.

So far, the IONIQ 6 N is the only EV to understand that.

It isn't just point and shoot; you can play around with it. All fake, yes. And there is something deep within me that still finds it? mildly depressing that none of it is necessary. But every time I got in it during my week with it, I would still hit the N shortcut button on the steering wheel.

Because was it fun? Most definitely.

Sinister.