ZEEGNITION/Ishaan Rastogi
The Hyundai Motor Company can trace its roots back to 1967 when it was licensed to assemble and sell the Ford Cortina and Taunus. It didn’t make its own vehicle until 1975 when the Hyundai Pony, the world’s first Korean mass-market car, was born. The Hyundai Pony project was masterminded by ex-Austin Morris Managing Director, George Turnbull and showcased a combination of stellar Italian design, a Mitsubishi sourced powertrain and British engineering.
Despite the Pony doing extremely well owing to its low price, the car also developed a reputation of being extremely unreliable. From there stemmed a stream of dainty low-cost Korean tin-boxes up until a decade ago when Hyundai successfully managed to change its philosophy. The Korean firm decided to rebuild its image from scratch and made a firm attempt to embody the principles of customer satisfaction and cost of ownership. It was the first step that the company took towards achieving its present day superstar status.
Once Hyundai rid itself of the ugly tag of being unreliable, the company progressed on to concentrating on making high quality products. Over the span of the 90’s, the company shovelled vast sums of money into their research and development department to create a brand name synonymous with quality. By the 21st century, Hyundai had established itself as a global frontrunner in the automotive industry by offering cost-effective vehicles that were decently built and offered exceptional value. Gone were the days where they were scorned at by high end manufacturers owing to their sales figures which had grown exponentially.
The final feather in its cap would have to be the initiation of the ‘Fluidic Sculpture’ design concept that pushed its engineers to not only create feature packed quality products but to deliver them in desperately pretty packages. The Fluidic Sculpture platform takes cues from nature and definitely shows in the company’s latest slick designs. The principle behind it is that nature is made of curves, not right angles. This new platform has resulted in some fabulous looking cars that are composed of elegant swooping lines and curves and the first examples of the design philosophy were showcased in the 2010 Hyundai Tucson SUV and Sonata luxury sedan. 2014 saw the rise of Fluidic Sculpture 2.0, an evolutionary design platform that set the tone for its upcoming models.
Today, the company has not only gained the trust of the masses, but has also reeled in a host of loyal customers who swear by Hyundai's product line. In India, fluidic Hyundai’s like the Verna not only look superb but are priced competitively, easy to maintain and offer immense value with best in class features, safety and space. The i20 Elite truly overwhelmed the market and has sold over 100,000 units in just 11 months. With cars like the Creta soon to be introduced, one can’t help but feel that Hyundai is only going to get better from here on. In the words of Adil Jal Darukhanawal, our beloved Editor-in-chief at ZEEGNITION, the gawky teenager has finally blossomed into a stunning supermodel.
