Korean cars

Here’s pretty much all I know about Korea as a whole. There’s a North and a South, Starcraft is their national sport, and my grandfather punched a bunch of commies there back in the 50’s. South Korea – or the “US’ nerdy little cousin” as I’m going to refer to from now on – has two different car companies that export to the United States; Kia and Hyundai. For the most part they’ve been sort of like “the other white meat” of the Asian car companies and for appreciable reasons such as low build quality and imitative design. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but it turns out that the other white meat is friggin’ delicious recently!

(North Korea: Commies. South Korea: Starcraft)

Hyundai has been on a balls-out adventure to start giving the ‘big players’ bloody noses right in their own homes and for the most part, they’ve been succeeding. Rear wheel drive two door coupes have been on the decline recently and what was once dominated by the Nissan 240sx, Honda S2000, hell even the Toyota Supras have now faded to a single Asian company making two door RWD coupes; Hyundai with their Genesis. Not only is Hyundai pumping out the only RWD coupes within a reasonable price range, but they’re actually quite badass. 2.0T inline 4 version as well as a monster 3.8 V6 version? Whoa…The Koreans make cool cars?

(Very cool looking, two interesting powerplants, and a great price point? Well done Hyundai)

Kia, who is notoriously lower end of the market and derivative design-wise, has also put out a pretty sweet lookin’ little diddy that they call the Forte Koup. While it may be slightly derivative, it speaks directly to me and what I like in a little two door FWD coupe and I’m seriously considering taking a test drive in one. It’s a bit Civic Si, a bit Scion tC, and a bit of whatever South Korean magic they’ve got. The result is pretty sweet looking and powered on par with the other coupes in that price bracket.

(Kia Forte Koup. Pretty cool lookin’ little entry into the FWD 2door coupe market)

Today when I was on the highway I looked over my shoulder at a very sleek and upscale looking sedan which I assumed stereotypically to be a German made luxo-sedan. Imagine my surprise when I looked again and saw the Hyundai logo on the butt end. Holy crap…what market are these guys not battling in these days?

(Looks better in black, but don’t all luxury cars?)

Right now, I’m on team South Korea. They’re kicking ass both quietly and loudly in all the basic price brackets and in my opinion they’re completely changing their image. I will give Hyundai the lion’s share of the praise, but you can’t deny that Kia is making some major improvements in their flagship cars and their outward image. Just like my Ford article a while back, I’m not paid or sponsored or getting anything out of this post…just wanted to give credit where it was due.

– Steve still doesn’t think Starcraft is all that interesting