UK Off Road ›› Sports Utility Vehicles ›› Hyundai Cars
Creating award-winning vehicles is an achievement that only a select few multinational automotive manufacturers execute with dynamism and pizzazz.
The information in this section contains links to Hyundai car models with other items of interest in the news from their headquarters in Seoul, South Korea.
In 1968, Hyundai Motor Company started working with the Ford Motor Company to release the Mark II Ford Cortina.
Six years later, they hired several top British car engineers (including the former managing director at British Leyland) to help them create the first South Korean car.
As a result, using powertrain technology from Mitsubishi Motors, they released the Hyundai Pony in 1975.
From 1984, excluding the United States due to failed emissions tests, exports of the Pony to Canada became so successful that it actually attained the top-selling car on the Canadian market.
The Hyundai Grandeur (a rebadged Mitsubishi Debonair) became the flagship for their South Korean range from 1986 until 1996 when they introduced a premium executive sedan - the Hyundai Dynasty.
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In fact, cars made by Hyundai failed to sell in the United States until 1986. The Excel became a big hit stateside due to its "affordability" at $4,995.
Even so, it took until 1988 for the company to start producing models with their own technology. For example, a first generation midsize Sonata (actually a facelifted Hyundai Stella) finally hit the dealerships.
Moving forward...
Hyundai has been winning accolades and awards since 2004. To prove a point, Interbrand (Brand Valuers) rank it as one of the top 100 most valuable brands worldwide.
What a start for Hyundai's IONIQ 5 N electric hyper hatchback as the TopGear.com Awards crowned it Car of the Year 2023.
OTR prices for this high-performance model start around £65,000 in the United Kingdom. It combines the Electrified-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP) from the World Car of the Year 2022 - the standard IONIQ 5 (one of their compact crossover SUVs).
The honours keep rolling in for the Hyundai all-electric IONIQ 6. The judges hailed it as being "the perfect car for our times". They also named the all-new Kona Electric as being the "Best Small SUV" - with prices starting around £25,680.
Pro Tip: Check out our automotive blog for a list of cars named after a place, with a brief anecdote about the relationship between the locality and the vehicle named after it (e.g. the Austin Westminster, Bentley Brooklands, and the Hyundai Tucson).