It's still so wild to see Hyundai's earliest offerings in comparison to its current lineup.
I'm too young to have experienced the Excel, but I've heard from plenty that the company has come a long way.
Photography courtesy Hyundai
Some dark bar in Lower Manhattan. It was the week of the New York auto show.
A PR person from Hyundai told us that they were poised to enter IMSA competition and take on the Civic Type R in the touring car ranks. Okay, I said to myself, everyone needs a goal, no matter how lofty it might seem. I kept that thought to myself. Manners and all that.
Hyundai has since won that manufacturers’ title five years in a row. And at last week’s autocross, we had more Hyundais than Hondas.
[Here comes Hyundai | When did Hyundai become a major motorsports player?]
There’s more Hyundai content in this issue than Honda, and it’s not like Big Hyundai is paying us off. Best we can do is get loaner cars from them and some press junket invites, but everyone does that. Hyundai’s always good about returning phone calls, though. Can’t say that about everyone else.
Maybe there really is something to the four P’s of marketing: product, price, place and promotion.
As a little kid, we didn’t have Hyundais. Not like we didn’t own them, but rather, they weren’t even available in the American market. I do remember meeting some distant relatives from Canada, and–I know this is going to shock you–cars came up. “Hyundai,” I recall someone saying, “it rhymes with Monday.”
I tucked away that little nugget in my internal filing cabinet. Shortly thereafter, in 1986, Hyundai Motor America sold its first model stateside: the Excel. Starting price was $4995, so less than $15,000 in today’s American dollars. The only new car for less was the Yugo. Our local Hyundai dealership opened that same year, giving the brand its first one in New York.
The company’s headline-grabbing, N-branded performance models were still decades in the future, but Hyundai still sold nearly 170,000 units that year, setting a record for a first-year import brand. Toyota entered the American market back in 1957. First-year sales for that firm? How about 287 Toyopet Crown sedans plus a lone Land Cruiser?
Hyundai’s discount price was the big news. Less discussed was the man who designed the Excel’s sheet metal, but I totally see it: It’s one of Giorgetto Giugiaro folded-paper designs. That same language can also be found in his work on the BMW M1 supercar, the stainless-steel DMC DeLorean and, as featured elsewhere in this issue, the lovable VW Rabbit.
Not everything he’s done follows that theme, however, as his resumé also includes flowing, rounded forms used by Alfa Romeo, Maserati and even Ferrari. His work’s not limited to cars, either, as he also designed for Seiko, Nikon, Ducati and, as noted on his Wikipedia page, a company that must have needed a kick-ass look for its balsamic vinegar bottle. I’m sure it’s rad as heck.
We wrote about Hyundai’s rally efforts in our July 1997 issue. Two years prior, the brand hooked up with Libra Racing, helmed by rally legend John Buffum, and quickly clinched the SCCA’s driver and navigator championships–this was back when the club sanctioned the lion’s share of performance rally in the U.S.
“Looking good isn’t enough; you have to actually be good,” Jim Hossack, vice president of product planning at Hyundai, told us in that article. “That’s why we selected PRO Rally as the proving ground for our cars’ performance–it best demonstrates the reliability and durability of our cars and the legitimacy of our company.”
Libra Racing ran the Tiburon at the time. Can’t recall ever seeing a Tiburon, or really any other Hyundais, at a local event back then, though.
But Hyundai kept plowing away. More rally, Pikes Peak, drift. They took cars to the Nürburgring.
The street products finally caught up. JG circled the FIRM faster in a Veloster N than the pricier GR Corolla or the FK8-chassis Civic Type R. The Elantra N outran my E46 M3.
[The improved Hyundai Elantra N is a performance sedan that (still) excels at regular car stuff]
Back in the day, I’d see rows of Civics at any meet. I was there with my own. The Hondas are still present–different faces, different cars–but today I’m also seeing Hyundai fans decked in their Performance Blue. Lots of them. And proud to be part of a community. Our community.
It's still so wild to see Hyundai's earliest offerings in comparison to its current lineup.
I'm too young to have experienced the Excel, but I've heard from plenty that the company has come a long way.
I remember the Excel well, and its sister Mitsubishi Precis. Then they had the Scoupe, which I thought was cool. I will say that all those years still has my vision tainted. I have a lot of respect for them, great cars. Still see them as "cheap" compared to the competition.
I recently saw a meme showing workers in a precision factory and the title was "Honda building cars in the 90s" the video then transitioned to a bunch of drunk bros catching a whole kitchen on fire trying to fry something with the title "Honda trying to build cars today" and it's a fact. The CTR, ITS, and MDX Type-S are great offerings, everything else is meh at best.
Hyundai/Kia/Genesis are killing it though. While they certainly aren't building 90s Hondas, they are catering to the niche crowds, building exciting cars filled with tons of features, and heavily involved in motorsports.
There are also plenty of case studies out there to read on how they took their 10 year/100k warranty and used it to improve upon parts and quality and to keep that upward trajectory going. Obviously they still need to improve on somethings regarding longevity but it ain't the same Hyundai from 20 years ago, where I wouldn't even consider buying one of their cars.
In reply to Colin Wood :
I helped a friend move way back and the favor was to drive his 80K mileage Excel for a couple of trips back and forth. I still feel it was the worse car I ever drove with the mileage, drove like a barge, felt unstable at just 65 mph and basic lane changes felt like the car was going to roll over. The motor just enough to move the car. Watched with interest when I found Biermann was running N and the I30N was well received in Europe. Needed a new car a few years back and decided to see what the vN was about. This was in 2019 so no real media hype at the time but after the test drive:
Initiation into HPDE days started not too long after purchase. I never would have thought I would have ended up in a Hyundai after my Excel experience!
The Hyundai reliability bias is still so strong, and I am first to admit I also shared this ignorance. The Elantra N kept coming up in comparison videos against GRCs, and CTRs I was shopping, and I would just immediately skip over that part, because #Hyundai.
Luckily someone from SFR posted how the N cars were doing in AX, so I started watching and researching. Turns out this was the car I was shopping for the whole time, but I was blinded by bias.
I would like to personally thank the persons in the market that indulged dealer greed enabling wide spread "market adjustments" allowing me to find a better hpde car for ~$10‐15k less
A coworker bought an Excel...and it never excelled.
But that was a lifetime ago and from the N products to the Genesis GV-80 luxo-suv, it's a group of companies I'd seriously consider shopping if I was in the market.
And for me, "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" still works. I love what Hyundai has done in the racing world...and there's more, bigger things coming soon with the GTP car for IMSA.
I briefly considered them for the daughtermobile, but haven't they had sort of a problem putting together an engine that doesn't devour itself in a relatively short time span lately?
In reply to wae :
Yeah, I'm getting nervous coming up on year 8 of our warranty on the Sedona. It's been nearly flawless, the only issues being a starter motor and fast rear brake wear. But it's making me nervous.
It is going to be hard to separate it from my wife though. She loves that thing.
A couple of years back, I drove a Genesis GV80 to lunch.
While in parking lot, a woman came bouncing up: Is that the new Genesis!??
She already owned one and was way excited to see the brand’s latest IRL. So, score one for them.
Haters gonna hate. The Subaru/Toyota twins have engine issues, Audi is famous for unreliability, ditto for Mercedes and Range Rover, Ford has had some terrible truck motors, ditto for Chevy, Subaru head gaskets are wear items to be replaced every 50K miles, and don't get me started on Stellantis. People love to hate, so they repeat the online troll vomit as fact and give Hyundai a bad reputation. There is no denying that they have an issue with a particular engine, but so have most manufacturers at one time or another.
The Elantra N and Kona N have proven to be dead-nuts reliable and well supported by Hyundai for the few issues that have come up. I have beat upon mine mercilessly and it has only asked for more. Kinda reminds me of my 4th gen Civic; lots of fun and hard to kill. I wish Hyundai still had the site where you could see all of the changes to the Elantra N. They considered every brace, bolt, and bracket and made about 100 changes to the car for N duty. Its impressive how much they did to the car to ensure that it holds up to track duty...and it does.
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