About three years since it was first unveiled, the Hyundai i40 is slowly, but surely, heading towards a mid-cycle facelift, which according to the following spy photos, may be quite a bit more thorough than we first expected.

While other recent pre-production prototypes of the model in both sedan and Tourer (station wagon) form seem to only sport a slight redesign of the front and rear, this heavy-camouflaged prototype caught doing rounds of the Nurburgring Nordschleife seems to hide an all-new engine grille.

It may be just us, but its shape under the camo looks not unlike the one on the 2015 Hyundai Genesis, which seems a bit odd considering that the US-bound relative of the i40 (2015 Sonata) isn’t wearing a much smaller version of the Genesis sedan grille, despite essentially being the same car as the i40 underneath.

In other words, the over-sized “single frame” grille on the 2015 Hyundai Genesis sedan may very well become a corporate grille for Hyundai, but only in certain markets.

There is currently no information about any new engines to arrive under the hood of the redesigned i40 sedan and Tourer, but we can expect the two versions to be unveiled near or at the 2015 edition of the Geneva Motor Show, if not a bit sooner than that.

By Alex Oagana

Photo Credits: CarPix for CarScoopS

Photo Gallery