- [Host] In the mid 2000s, Hyundai had a problem
that they were unable to prove with data,
the brand wasn't cool.
The company's US sales figures were decent,
tucked below Japan's big three
and above Kia, Infiniti, and Acura.
But the brand lacked the enthusiast loyalty
they believed could take their reputation
to the next level.
Hyundai USA, turned their gaze
to the attainable sports car market.
The major players had much in common,
two doors, around 300 horsepower,
and most importantly rear wheel drive.
Hyundai decided their best bet
to capture the enthusiast market
would be to build a car like this of their own.
They did, and it failed.
But it also shaped the Hyundai we know today,
which recently became
the fifth largest automaker in the world
and gain some clout in the process.
So how did Hyundai get cool?
Are they cool?
Let's find out.
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- [Host] Hyundai's reputation depends on who you talk to
and we'll get to that later.
But when they first arrived in America,
people all felt pretty much the same.
In the mid 80s, the American market
for hyper economy cars was becoming underserved.
While manufacturers like Honda and Nissan
began their stories selling bare bones economy cars
for frugal drivers.
They eventually positioned themselves
up market to compete directly
with more luxurious American car makers.
This left a sizable opening
in the market for smaller manufacturers
from countries not usually included in the conversation
like Yugo from Yugoslavia and Korean new comer, Hyundai.
Hyundai's first car in America arrived in 1986.
The somewhat ironically named Excel
made nearly 70 horsepower
and that's kind of the only interesting thing about it.
Underneath the exterior designed
by industry legend, Giorgetto Giugiaro,
the Excel shared its architecture
with the Mitsubishi Mirage, another econobox.
So far the Excel sounds exceedingly mundane
but Hyundai had a pretty big trick up their sleeve.
In 1986, the Excel cost $4,995,
a little less than $13,000 in today's money.
So, sure, the vinyl interior felt a bit cheap,
0 to 60 took over 16 seconds
and a tachometer wasn't standard.
But when you're paying that little for a car,
people were more than willing to overlook those issues
and boy, did they.
In Hyundai's first year in America,
they sold over 168,000 cars in the US alone
and 1 million worldwide.
When taking a look at first year sales
of other foreign manufacturers,
Hyundai did pretty damn well.
And look, people who bought these cars
knew what they were getting into.
The Excel's price
was half of the new car average at the time.
You could feasibly buy two of these for the price of one,
an idea Hyundai actually used in their ad copy.
So while paying customers accepted the shortcomings
of a cheap car and loved them for it,
people who didn't drive an Excel
only saw it as a cheap car with zero features.
Thus, beginning Hyundai's two pronged reputation
which would persist for decades.
Even though initial sales for Hyundai were strong,
it didn't take long before the company would sense
that something was amiss.
Two years in the US and they are already knew
that people didn't think very highly of the brand.
The eight ladies in early 90s were prime time
for hot hatches like the Golf GTI and Honda CRX.
Cars built for young drivers who wanted something fun,
but affordable.
Honda said, hey, we've got something affordable,
all we gotta do is make it fun.
Then the kids will think we're cool, right?
Did they succeed?
Eh.
Hyundai introduced the Scoupe in 1988.
This two door four seater wasn't a hatchback like the CRX
but it was sporty looking
and looks were maybe the only sporty thing about it.
Underneath the pointy body was
that same Excel chassis and asthmatic engine.
There was also a turbo version,
but it was also kind of slow from what I can tell.
Now, that's not to say,
that Hyundai didn't try with the Scoupe
because when it came to the suspension,
Hyundai went over to jolly old England
and asked Lotus to help them out with the handling.
The result was what MotorWeek called, fun,
in their 1991 review.
That was a win for Hyundai.
They knew what their reputation was.
They were upfront about it.
Unfortunately for the Scoupe,
MotorWeek also pointed out
that while the Honda CRX
was a thousand dollars more than the Hyundai,
the CRX had more power, handled better
and got better fuel mileage.
So after seven short years of life, the Scoupe got the boot.
Hyundai's quest for cool, had hit a speed bump.
Hyundai's follow up to the Scoupe wasn't far behind.
Instead of reusing an old platform they didn't design,
Hyundai went with a brand new car
named after my favorite animal class, Chondrichthyes.
Con, condre fight. Condre thighs?
- Chondrichthyes. - Chondrichthyes.
- Chondrichthyes.
(host giggling)
- I'm talking about sharks, baby.
Do you know what they call sharks in Spanish?
Tiburón.
Like the pursuit of the GTI and CRX,
the Tiburon targeted the new hotness
in attainable sports cars, front wheel drive sports coupes.
Your Celicas, your Eclipses, your Preludes.
It was super apparent, Honda was going after this audience.
The first gen Tiburon was basically a great value,
six gen Celica.
Can I be vulnerable for a second?
I kind of like this one,
there's something endearing in it's ugliness.
It's like a pug.
Yeah, you're ugly, but you're also so cute.
You make loud noises.
The styling got a little better with the second gen tip.
Remember earlier when I said Hyundai had a two-pronged
reputation, where Hyundai owners loved their cars
and people who didn't, thought they were junk.
Well, this was especially true with the Tiburon.
Go into any comment section on content about these cars
and you'll be seeing people singing their praises all day.
(hallelujah playing)
The Tib was reliable
and apparently the 2.7 liter V6 could take a ton of abuse.
Even Richard Hammond,
had this to say about the Hyundai coupe on Top Gear.
- It's just a good drive. Fact.
- [Host] People love their Tiburon,
they might be at the same level as Crown Vic owners
in their devotion.
Even though the Tib had a faithful following,
I don't really think it succeeded in being cool.
It came out in a time when Hyundai still had a reputation
for being cheap and the Tiburon was positioned
as an entry level car in the sports coupe market,
a market that was already seen as entry level.
If the Celica was the first step
into the sports car staircase,
the Tib was that small half step you stub your toe on.
It was there,
but it's just easier to raise your leg a little higher.
Cool attempt number three came in the mid 2000s.
The Xbox 360 had just launched,
smartphones weren't really a thing yet,
the great recession was just blooming
in the distance menacingly, times were good.
But Hyundai still hadn't made a cool car.
That was gonna change.
Maybe they were looking at things wrong this whole time.
It's really hard for any company to make a cool subcompact
so of course the Scoupe didn't work.
It's really hard to design
an iconic front wheel drive sports coupe,
so the Tiburon could be forgiven.
Maybe they should have just made a car
in a class that was inherently cool.
I'm talking about rear wheel sports cars.
Hyundai took a long look at the cars
young buyers really wanted, the 350Z, S2000, Infiniti G37.
If they could just build something like that,
maybe things would be different this time around.
What they came up with, was the 2010 Genesis Coupe.
This thing checked all the boxes,
rear wheel drive, independent rear suspension, two door,
multiple engine choices including a turbocharged option,
manual transmission and affordable.
If you put all those attributes together in a car today,
it would be a banger.
Let's talk about the positives first.
Both the naturally aspirated 3.8 liter V6
and the turbocharge two liter are solid engines.
The lore around these power plants is
that the cheaper turbo four banger was intended
for the tuner crowd, a more affordable car
that could be customized to the owner's preference.
In fact, the two liter can be tuned with some bolt-ons
to make around the same power as the V6
but with extensive engine work and a bigger turbo
the small Theta can make over 500 wheel horsepower.
That's pretty impressive.
This is a total digression
but sometimes you'll hear a Genesis owner joke
that their cars a rear wheel drive Evo.
Here's what they mean.
Hyundai's Theta four cylinder engine was designed
with cooperation of the Global Manufacturing Alliance,
a consortium between Chrysler, Hyundai and Mitsubishi.
Engines designed in this Alliance use similar components
and geometries but they're not really the same.
According to this blog post from Pavel's Racing Engines,
the two engines look similar on the outside
but the only aftermarket parts they can share
are some head bolt studs and a head gasket.
It's not exactly a carbon copy.
So sorry, Tanner.
As for the larger 3.8 liter Lambda V6
that was for someone who wanted to drive the car
as it came from the factory.
It can also handle nitrous pretty reliably
and from what I've read,
that's the best way to make power with this engine.
Hyundai was really going after the hearts
and minds of car nerds with the Genesis Coupe.
Throughout its life,
the car was offered with performance upgrades
including a top trim level called Track Edition
which featured beefed up suspension and Brembo brakes.
But despite building a legit sports car
that even Car and Driver loved in their review,
Hyundai still adhered to their thrifty roots.
A top trim Track Edition V6 coupe costs $375 less
than a base level Nissan, 370Z.
But was it cool?
It's really hard to say,
it's like a reverse Tiburon situation here.
The drivetrain was good.
The car handled well enough.
I just don't think the styling was there.
Look at the first and second gen cars
and put them next to the competition.
Nissan was bringing the heat in those days
and the Genesis kinda looks like a car.
I'm sorry to say, it's just not cool looking.
So Hyundai tried three times and it didn't really work out
but as Thomas Edison famously equipped
when asked about his failures when inventing the light bulb,
I've not failed,
I've just found 10,000 ways that don't make a sports car.
With that spirit in mind, Hyundai persisted.
Right before the Genesis Coupe's death in 2016,
Hyundai made one of the best decisions in company history.
Albert Biermann was fresh out of school
when he was hired by BMW in the early 80s
to work on the E30 road car.
Albert's area of expertise was chassis engineering.
Albert was a racing fanatic, but company tradition dictated
that only senior engineers
were allowed to work on race cars.
However, the experienced engineers
that would've normally taken that job
were heavily focused on road car development.
So, somehow Albert was able to get a spot on the race team.
Albert's biggest contribution
to the project was his role cage.
His steel design made the E30 twice as stiff
as the old 635 racer
but Albert's cage was seven pounds lighter.
Fast forward to 2008
and Albert became the vice president of BMW's M division.
If there's an M car
from the mid two 2000s onward that you like,
Albert played a big role in making it cool.
This guy knows his (beep)
which is why the car world was thrown off its racing line
when Hyundai hired Albert in 2014.
Officially, Biermann was hired as Hyundai's
Head of Vehicle Test and High Performance division.
Albert's first task was sorting out the upcoming,
G90 executive sedan.
But what Hyundai really brought the German to Seoul to do,
was to build some badass cars.
Hyundai was in the preliminary stages
of establishing their own performance brand
much like, the M division, Biermann had just left.
They called their skunk works, N for Namyang
or Nurburgring depending on who you ask.
Namyang is Hyundai's proving ground
where the N division is based
and they also have a research center at the ring,
so it works both ways.
Today, N division is cranked out six cars
with three of them available in the US.
Over here, we get the Veloster N, the Elantra N
and the Kona N.
Over in Europe, they have the 120, 130 and 130 N hatchback.
The N cars are powered by two engines,
the i20 N subcompact features
a 1.6 liter turbocharge four banger.
Hyundai claims that the i20 N weighs the same
as their WRC championship rally car.
That's pretty sick. I would very much like to drive one.
The rest of N's lineup
is powered by a 275 horsepower two liter engine
and these cars freaking slap, dude.
(upbeat music)
Albert Biermann was the special sauce Hyundai needed
to turn their okay sports cars into legitimate sports cars.
Turns out, when you hire a guy who's been building some
of the best cars in the world for 30 years,
he's gonna build you a good car.
But, the question remains,
are these N cars cool?
That's a hard question to answer.
Over the course of writing this episode,
I realized I didn't really know how I was gonna end it.
The problem is that cool is entirely subjective.
What I think is cool might be entirely different
than what you think is cool.
The nature of cool itself is extremely fickle.
If you try to be cool, you're not gonna be cool.
Think about street wear,
a brand that's cool one week, can be whacked the next
and conversely things that were once dorky,
can become cool in time.
Hyundai maybe they weren't trying to build cool cars,
they were just trying to build good cars.
And if publications like Road & track and MotorTrend
or any number of serious car people are to be trusted,
the Veloster N, is a really, really good car.
It took 34 years but Hyundai finally produced
one of the best budget sports cars in the world.
That's pretty cool.
So, where did they go from here?
Late last year, Hyundai announced
that Albert Biermann would be leaving his role,
as the leader of the N division.
He'll be around to advise Hyundai
but he's no longer at the helm.
It's a little sad
but the N vision has some pretty sweet stuff in the works
like a mid engine hatchback
that we should be seeing around 2024.
Really looking forward to that.
It's also very likely
that the Ioniq 5 EV will get the N treatment
which also has potential to be sick.
But I think the biggest key
to Hyundai's enthusiast loyalty,
can't come from Hyundai at all.
In my of research, something interesting kept popping up
in YouTube comments and forum posts.
Hyundai owners love their rides,
but a common thread between older Hyundai sports cars
is that performance almost always plateaued
because the lack of an aftermarket.
People bought their Scoupes
and Tiburons and Genesis Coupes then,
didn't have a whole lot of stuff to bolt on
when they wanted more out of them.
Contrast that with the 350Z or WRX,
which have an enormous amount of aftermarket support.
Luckily the tide seems to be shifting with the Veloster N.
You can get suspension and big brake kits granted
from a small number of vendors, but it's getting better.
To their credit, Hyundai has partnered with shops
like Bisimoto to show what you can do with their cars
in an attempt to stoke the coals of the aftermarket.
Big old bellow to blow the air on those coals.
Partnerships like that are key to get car nerds interested
as crazy builds get more press.
Hyundai finally found their way to cool with performance.
This current crop of N cars have made huge headway
in persuading people to join team Hyundai.
On my Instagram, @nolanjsykes by the way,
I asked people what they thought of Hyundai
and I was blown away by the positive responses.
Without N, I don't think they'd be so positive.
People whose opinions hold a lot of weight,
hit me up, saying Hyundai is the most exciting
accessible brand at the moment.
So, whatever they're doing, it's working.
Thank you very much for watching Wheelhouse.
I've been knee deep
in Hyundai research over the past couple weeks.
It was pretty fascinating to learn about some of those cars,
like the Scoupe, I never heard of that one.
Tiburon, it's all right.
If you have one of those, good on you.
If you've got a cool Hyundai,
post some pics, tag me, I wanna see them.
Like a month ago we had a Kona N at the office,
I took it out to the crest,
it was a great car, that DCT shifts super fast
and I was really impressed that a little crossover
could be that fun to drive.
Yeah, we'll see what happens from here.
More fun cars in the market is always a good thing.
All right.
See you next time. Be kind, bye.