Navigation
Hyundai-Kia named Automotive Manufacturer of the year by Autocar
The UKs oldest motoring magazine, Autocar, has named Hyundai-Kia as its Automotive Manufacturer of the Year at its annual award ceremony at the Horticultural Halls in Westminster London.
Citing the Korean giants mind-blowing ambition, editor Chas Hallet presented the title to Mr Nam-Yong Kim, President of Hyundai-Kias European Research and Development Centre in Germany.
Hallett commented: When the irrepressible Hyundai-Kia group started talking, just a few years ago, about wanting to become the worlds fifth largest car company behind Toyota, GM, Ford and Audi-VW, many of us were sceptical.
Then the Korean group got serious. They hatched a plan to assemble a European design and engineering team to conceive a range of models for Europe. Boldly, they challenged the VW Golf and Ford Focus head on, building cars that looked as good and worked as well and offering them with a far longer warranty, just for good measure. They began to acquire a reputation as the Eastern marques that would bring forth bold design concepts, much as Citroen has been doing in Europe, and they built separate factories for Hyundai and Kia in lower-cost Eastern Europe, servicing both operations from handily placed engine and gearbox plants he added.
The product of a merger in 1998, Hyundai-Kia currently dominate the Korean domestic car market with an 80 per cent share and this year became the worlds fifth largest car-maker according to Automotive News in the US.
With plants in North America, China, Europe and other locations including Russia, the Middle East and South East Asia Hyundai-Kia have climbed into the top ranks of the worlds biggest car companies in less than 50 years. Both companies began making automobiles in the 1960s and did not start exporting their products until the 1980s.
Hyundai has just opened its newest plant in the Czech Republic where production of the i30 model is already underway
Citing the Korean giants mind-blowing ambition, editor Chas Hallet presented the title to Mr Nam-Yong Kim, President of Hyundai-Kias European Research and Development Centre in Germany.
Hallett commented: When the irrepressible Hyundai-Kia group started talking, just a few years ago, about wanting to become the worlds fifth largest car company behind Toyota, GM, Ford and Audi-VW, many of us were sceptical.
Then the Korean group got serious. They hatched a plan to assemble a European design and engineering team to conceive a range of models for Europe. Boldly, they challenged the VW Golf and Ford Focus head on, building cars that looked as good and worked as well and offering them with a far longer warranty, just for good measure. They began to acquire a reputation as the Eastern marques that would bring forth bold design concepts, much as Citroen has been doing in Europe, and they built separate factories for Hyundai and Kia in lower-cost Eastern Europe, servicing both operations from handily placed engine and gearbox plants he added.
The product of a merger in 1998, Hyundai-Kia currently dominate the Korean domestic car market with an 80 per cent share and this year became the worlds fifth largest car-maker according to Automotive News in the US.
With plants in North America, China, Europe and other locations including Russia, the Middle East and South East Asia Hyundai-Kia have climbed into the top ranks of the worlds biggest car companies in less than 50 years. Both companies began making automobiles in the 1960s and did not start exporting their products until the 1980s.
Hyundai has just opened its newest plant in the Czech Republic where production of the i30 model is already underway
