The front seats are quite comfortable, with good bolstering, and the standard beige cloth is smooth though unexciting. There's an especially large dead pedal to support the driver's left foot.

The blue backlighting of the gauges has a youthful spirit, and makes the driver feel like it's a cool car. The arcs of the speedo and tach are a thin blue line, with red needles pointing the way.

The radio control knobs are blessedly simple, like radio knobs should be. But we didn't care for the trim on the dash; imagine a silver plastic golf ball.

In the rear, the 35 inches of leg room is a half-inch more than the Civic and Sentra, and 1.5 inches less than the 2009 Corolla, give or take a tenth. But the Elantra has good hip room.

Elantra has a large trunk. For carrying cargo, the rear seatbacks fold down to allow a pass-through into the trunk. However, the opening isn't vast like the Nissan Sentra's.

Storage compartments are abundant. There's a neat box inside the top of the dash, and a sunglasses container in the headliner. The fixed door pockets have built-in bottle holders. Below the three climate control knobs there's a small companion to the glovebox, and below that, forward of the shift lever, there's also an open storage area. There are two cupholders behind that, and a double console under the driver's elbow.

Generally, the interior is notably quiet, for a compact car. Then the wind picked up, and as we watched the dust devils ahead of us on the road, we listened to the whooshing against the glass.