Archived Road Test
The name is Hyundai and it rhymes with "Sunday" and it comes from South Korea. Nobody is pretending that this car represents the leading edge of automotive art. But if you're talking automotive business, this may well be the biggest story of 1986. Let us explain.
If American industrialists think anything about the Far East (China, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.), they think of it as a "market." You know, a place to sell a fraction of their factories' output; and this, in turn, allows them to crank up the assembly line a notch or two and gain some economy of scale. American industrialists are always talking about stuff like this. You read it in the business pages.
But Americans aren't the only industrialists in the world, and some of the others think of the U.S. in exactly the same terms. The only difference is the type of products to be exported.
America is an advanced industrial nation, and our specialty is high-technology stuff: computers, airplanes, military exotica, medicines, etc. If there is a lot of labor involved, we're not particularly competitive.
For less developed countries, however, plain old manufacturing is a big step up in the world. Foundries, stamping plants, and shipyards are the big time when your father earned the family living with a hoe.
In modern industrial terms, cars are decidedly low tech. Sorry about that, dear reader, but it's true—at least for commodity cars, the kind of transportation modules you buy off the shelf like no-name sink cleaner in the generic section at Kroger. "Uh, yeah, gimme five grand worth of car, blue's okay."
This is not a new marketing scheme. For more than 30 years, imported cars have been gaining a toehold in America in exactly this way.
What's new is the source of the cars. You may have noticed that we're beginning to see a new wave of submarket automobiles, all from makers other than the famous-label Japanese. The Yugo was first, built in the low-wage country of Yugoslavia. Now we're seeing Korean cars: Hyundais initially, to be followed in a year by Daewoo-built Pontiacs and Samsung-equipped Chryslers; and, very likely, by Kia-built Fords at a still-later date. This new wave of low-priced transit modules also contains small Japanese cars such as the Suzuki-built Chevy Sprint and the forthcoming Daihatsu Charade and Subaru Justy. They will be reported upon in due time. Meanwhile, the subject is Hyundai.
In case you're thinking of Hyundai as some kind of thatch-roofed blacksmith shop on the backside of the world, you should know that it sold $10.3 billion dollars' worth of cars, ships, machinery, construction equipment, metals, and the like in 1984, the most recent year for which figures are available. Its sales amounted to roughly ten percent of South Korea's GNP, so we aren't talking trifles.
The company was founded in 1949; but it didn't get around to setting up a car division until 1967, and its first car, the Pony, wasn't introduced until 1975. Progress since then has been—well, "astounding" is not too strong a word. A Canadian operation was established in 1983; by mid-1985, Hyundai was the number-one car importer in Canada.
Probably you're wondering how a car company so young can move so fast. Much of it has to do with Korean ambition, which is considerable. But much of it has to do with the nature of the car business today, too. If you know how to run a manufacturing plant, you can buy all the car expertise you need to get started. Hyundai has a technical agreement with Mitsubishi. The Excel—Hyundai's first model to be sold in the U.S.—shares its basic chassis design with the Mitsubishi Mirage, which is the same car sold by Chrysler as the Colt. The exterior design came from Giugiaro, who is in the business of making cars look good for anybody with money. So—presto!—a reasonably sophisticated car from a decade-old car company.
Hyundai's U.S. menu will start off with one car, the Excel, in four-door notchback and five-door hatchback configurations. A three-door hatchback will be along in a few months. There will be three trim levels: L as the price leader, then GL and GLS.
In this class of car, price is everything. Hyundai won't be slugging it out with the $3990 Yugo, but it won't have to: this is a modern design, cheap only because Korea is still a novice and lacks the car sense to produce, say, a Honda. So it can't sell at Honda prices, either. But, again, it won't have to, because Korean industrial workers earn something less than four dollars per hour, less than a third of the Japanese rate. We expect Hyundais to be priced about $800 cheaper than their Japanese equivalents, with the L model priced under $5000 to get everybody's attention.
We think you'll agree that the GL test car doesn't look like discount transportation. Certain Hyundai Motor America executives have been overheard murmuring about the design's lack of originality, saying that Giugiaro sold the same look to Isuzu for the I-Mark (a.k.a. Chevrolet Spectrum). There is a similarity. The Excel has a rounder, more pneumatic look, but both cars share certain designer details; for example, the way the door outlines seem to disappear into the sweep of the A-pillar and the roof. But this is a nifty trick, something Giugiaro has used a lot, and it's now being copied in studios everywhere. There is a certain awkwardness around the hatch of the five-door, but few designs make that assignment look good. Styling, we think, isn't a Hyundai problem.
When we report on cars like this, we have to decide whether to criticize them from a purely artistic standpoint—how they compare with some theoretical best possible—or to judge them purely as commodity transportation. The latter course seems better in this case. You could hardly expect a carmaker with only ten years of experience, located in a country that relies mostly on public transportation, to make a car stimulating to the enthusiast. To the driver, the Excel feels like an old Japanese car. How old? The staff consensus is six or seven years—late seventies. The steering doesn't have much straight-ahead sense, the clutch is a little odd, the carbureted engine's throttle response is somewhat lumpy, and all the machinery gives off slightly strange sounds. The Excel won't make your heart soar. But, at the same time, your sister could run it and not notice a thing, except that it's easy to drive and has nice colors inside. Hyundai is definitely selling commodity transportation.
The Excel's interior space is about normal for a 168.0-inch-long subcompact riding on a 93.7-inch wheelbase. Three adults can squeeze in back, but they'd rather not. Headroom is good in both front and back. The seat cushions tend to be soft and rather shapeless. The L model is all vinyl inside: shiny-looking, everything-proof, as if you could take a hose to it when it's time for cleaning. The higher-priced versions have Sunday-go-to-church cloth, so thoroughly color-coordinated you'd think somebody's mother had dressed them. There won't be any complaints about the appearance of the interiors.
The kind of customers in the market for a $5000 car won't complain about performance, either. The engine is a 1468cc single-overhead-cam four-cylinder built under license from Mitsubishi. It's the one called MCA-Jet in certain incarnations, with an extra intake valve about the diameter of your finger that opens at just the right time to induce a dose of turbulence in the combustion chamber. It has a two-barrel Mikuni carburetor with electronic feedback and a three-way catalyst.
The factory says 68 horsepower. The track testers say, "Faster than speeding molasses." Zero to sixty mph takes just over sixteen seconds; 67 mph is the reading at the end of the quarter-mile, and the Excel will wind out to a top speed of 90 if you're patient.
Some of the performance numbers look worse than the car feels. Top-gear passing times from 30 to 50 and 50 to 70 are 23.8 and 64.8 seconds, respectively. The test car was a five-speed version. The numbers would be far better with the four-speed because the two transmissions share the first four ratios, the five-speed adding an 0.86:1 overdrive. So the engine of our test car was notably relaxed on the freeway—indeed, the interior sound level at 70 mph was only 74 dBA—and so was the performance when we weren't rowing the gearbox.
The Excel's road adhesion appears none too spectacular, either, given its 0.69-g showing on the skidpad. But, again, there is a footnote. Whereas most cars these days recommend tire pressures in the 30-to-35-psi range, Hyundai says 24 psi for normal driving, 26 for high speeds (naturally, our testers put themselves in the latter category). We think the Excel would easily top 0.70 g with more normal pressures.
Even though our test car's limits were relatively low, its controllability at those limits was very good: mild understeer under power, with just a slight tuck-in when you lift off of the throttle. No histrionics.
Brake modulation was also excellent: we could hold right at the point of lockup. Unfortunately, the rears were inclined to lock very early; hence the long stops (219 feet from 70 mph). The brakes also faded noticeably.
Our testing was done on a production car—Excels have been coming off the line for nearly a year—but the equipment and trim intended for the American market had been installed by hand. Indeed, at the time of our testing, the head office in California had not yet decided what would be standard equipment on which model. The list of available equipment includes a tachometer (5800-rpm redline), a day/night mirror, a locking glove box, a locking fuel-filler door, and a rear defroster.
Hyundai seems particularly sensitive to balance-of-trade concerns, with the result that it has far more North American content in its cars than you would expect a start-up venture to offer. The Excel's tires are made in the U.S. by Goodyear (P155/80R-13 Corsa GT All-Season rubber is standard; P175/70R-13 tires are optional if you buy alloy wheels). The windshield, the headlights, the spark plugs, and the interior carpeting and vinyl are also made in U.S.A. Moreover, a 100,000-car-per-year assembly plant is in the works for Canada.
Clearly, Hyundai is trying to do the right thing. It's attempting to earn a substantial place in the car business by selling basic transportation, and hoping not to make the protectionists mad in the process. That's a tightrope that nobody else has been able to walk. The Excel may not be too exciting, but, as a business venture, Hyundai is nothing less than a thriller.—Patrick Bedard
