Hyundai Engine Cover Silliness

I saw this over on Autoblog. This is a photo of the engine compartment of the 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe.

I found it amusing that the engine cover is made to look as if the engine points North-South (rear wheel drive), when in fact this is a transverse East-West (front wheel drive) mounting. Also notice that if this was a North-South engine, it would be off-center!

So show do these things happen? Some Hyundai marketing guy said, "our target customer has no clue which way the engine points, so make it look sexy".

While they were at it, they should have molded in 8 "runners" instead of 6, maybe Soccer-Mom would have thought that she was driving a V8!

Image courtesy of Autoblog.