What is it?
The Hyundai Curb is a potential skirmish with Nissan's lawyers, is what it is. Hyundai's second major Detroit debut (alongside the Veloster coupé) is a concept that adds yet another rhetorical niche classification - UAV - to our acronym dictionary. It means 'urban activity vehicle'.
Hyundai calls it the car for those with an "active night life" - a group we could legitimately call 'Curb crawlers'. Whoever they are, it's likely they'll also be in the market for a Nissan Juke. The similarities between Nissan's outlandish supermini-SUV crossover and this one are marked.
Why's it here?
There's no doubt that if the Juke performs well, Hyundai won't be the only maker getting in on the action, but for now the Curb is strictly and definitively a concept car. Interior flourishes include HD monitors that double up as videophones, touch screen functionality for the controls, head-up displays, internet connectivity and iTunes-inspired 'cover flow' music selection.
Blue Link technology connects car to owner remotely, allowing operation of the heating, alarm and horn (to frighten dog walkers wandering past the parked car, perhaps). It will also notify the hapless owner when his car's been nicked, and give him the option of slowing it down or completely immobilising it. The concealed pop-up bike rack is a neat little idea, too.
Show stopper or floor filler?
Like the Kia KV7, this is the sort of impossibly big-wheeled concept that makes motor shows much more than multi-brand dealerships. It's also an interesting riposte to the Nissan Juke and could signal that, as with the Qashqai, Nissan has made the unusual mainstream. We wouldn't be surprised to see the Curb (or something similar) hit showrooms before 2012 is over.