Korea Achievement

Everybody on the entire planet by now knows that the Koreans don't make crap cars any more. In fairly recent memory, Seoul went from producing either older cars under license, or based heavily on old, proven, cheap technology, to being able to confidently vie for your money alongside established Western brand names. Today it's even got to the point where some of the latest gear by Kia and Hyundai is the kind of stuff you'd actually almost hanker for. The new Kia Sportage is quite a convincing package, the Hyundai iX35 is in the same ball-park.

It's time now for Hyundai to get a bit brave, start pumping weights, and hit the market where it hurts.

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Korea Opportunity

In the early 80s, Hyundai won few fans with the original Pony (named after its residual value of fifty quid) but went on to dominate the the bangs-for-your-buck market with the Stellar and Sonata, beloved of mini-cabbers and those in search of a true Cortina replacement. The first time we were exposed to Kia was with the whitewall-equipped Pride, a Mazda 121 rehash and a surprisingly decent machine.

Korea spent many years churning out thoroughly prosaic machinery, sold on a price-point and with the promise of reliability and excellent customer support. These claims were well founded, the technology was well proven through being ancient, and it has to be said that much of their customer base seemed to fall into the elderly, easily satisfied bracket. And now, with the worldwide launch of the new Genesis, Korea has given us a glimpse at their intentions:- They want to take over the world.

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