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Hyundai

Hyundai on market

The Hyundai Motor Company was established in 1967 in South Korea. At first the company was specialized in shipbuilding and only in 1968 it started producing cars.

In 1973 the development department of the company was opened. As the result of its work, in 1985 the world saw the midsector car Hyundai-Pony 1.3.

Already in the late 70s the company started exporting its cars to foreign markets and by the end of the 80s the export volume reached 1 mln cars. The developers were working on new models. For example, Hyundai Sonata, was presented in 1988 and in 1993 and in 1998 this model was modified.

In 1990 in Europe appeared a new model Hyundai Elantra, and in 1995 it was updated. From 1990 till 1998 the company launched several other models (Hyundai Lantra Wagon, Elantra, Hyundai Accent (X-3), Hyundai Coupe (in the USA Hyundai Tiburon), Hyundai Atoz, Hyundai Galloper II).

The year 1998 was a turning point in the history of Hyundai, sales went down and only thanks to purchasing Kia/Asia Motors, the company was able to become a worthy competitor on the world's market.

In 1999 the company presented EF Sonata and XG HMC as well as Hyundai Centennial, the new Accent, updated Coupe and Trajet. Thanks to launching the model Trajet, Hyundai made the first step towards the development of the MPV segment.

In 1990 the luxury car Hyundai Equus (in Europe – Centennial) was presented to the public. This model was specially designed for high officials and presidents of corporations.

The year 1999 was very successful for the company and the number of exported cars by the end of the year was 701 000 cars.

Such models as Accent, Lantra, Lantra Combi, Coupe and Sonata as well as Gets are very popular on the European market.


See also: Toyota    Mercury    SATURN    HUMMER    Mitsubishi    Oldsmobile    Jaguar    Suzuki    Lexus    Volkswagen