Hyundai gnaws away in traditional Jap markets

Many Harare residents will remember, I’m sure, the claustrophobic showrooms occupied by Hyundai Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe Road and Robson Manyika Avenue converge.
Today, things have changed dramatically, and in countries with genuinely competitive car markets, Hyundais (and blood-related Kias) are establishing themselves well up the pecking order when it comes to first choice. You see, Hyundai has gone about things the right way by finding out what people want rather than just giving them what suits the chief accountant’s back pocket.
I’ve a sneaking suspicion that a hint of complacency has crept into the thinking of the traditional Japanese suppliers, at least as far as lower to mainstream models are concerned, and Hyundai has jumped in with products that are less anodyne and which owe their origins to the inputs of engineers who not long ago were striding the corridors of many of Europe’s most famed assembly plants. Not only are the Koreans well equipped in standard guise, they’re neatly finished and, most importantly, if you regard a car as more than a tool for getting from A to B, they’re rather good to drive as well.
Cynics will tell you Hyndai benefited hugely from a weak local currency which made their cars cheap in external markets and which allowed the Korean manufacturer to spend much more per car on marketing than is the norm in the segments in which they’re strong. That argument may well hold some water but the fact that the won (Korean currency) has appreciated some 25 percent against the US dollar in the last four months may be sending out some warning signals that the inexorable rise is about to hit a brick wall.
Whatever, you can’t argue with a set of stats and events that point to everything being rather rosy in Hyundai’s back garden. The co-mpany’s share price has held out in the face of the app-arently endless recession — it beat Toyota and Honda in a recent US JD Power new ve-hicle quality su-rvey and its ma-rket share in the United States, supported by huge promotions — has inc-reased to 4,3 percent this year compared with 3 percent in 2008.
In Europe, Hyundai has taken the number two Asian-manufacturer sales slot from Nissan and is closing the gap to Toyota, but to put that in perspective, we’re talking of a 2,3 percent share in May, up from 1,8 percent last year. Most significant of all though, is the fact that in June this year, global sales were up by 9,6 percent on the same month in 2008. Can any other manufacturer report an incre-ase of this scale, I wonder?
Total sales of 4,16 million units in 2008 put the Hyundai/Kia conglomerate in fourth place on the world stage, but some pundits warn of a slowdown in growth, citing Hyundai’s tardiness in entering the hybrid market and the fact that they don’t believe funds will be sufficiently liquid to sustain the promotional efforts of recent times. Time will tell but for sure, the establishment will be keeping a very wary eye on this Korean giant which not so long ago was regarded with a measure of disdain.
F1 machinations
The in-fighting in F1 has reached pathetic levels with the governing body, the FIA, fighting with most of the entrants who gather under the name FOTA. No sooner has the latter body earned itself a bit of kudos than Max Mosley threatens not to “retire” later in the year so as to ensure that the nasty little-boy members of FOTA don’t get their way. And then the ringmaster who makes all the money out of the motoring circus, young Bernie, adds fuel to the fire by attributing some half-decent attributes to Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein.
If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable. What’s much more encouraging as far as viewing pleasure is concerned, is the resurrection of Red Bull Racing, especially in the hands of that ever-so-pleasant and super-fast racer called Sebastaian Vettel. Brawn GP and their re-born star Jenson Butt-on, look as though they are not going to have it all their own wa-y from now on, so this we-ekend’s Ger-man GP has added spice for sure. And if Vettel keeps up his astonishing turn of speed, look out for the expression on teammate Mark Webber’s face.
The Aussie does his best to look as though he’s stood bare-footed on a prickly pear whenever his young teammate drills him in qualifying and so far this year, the score is eight out of eight! I’m sure Webber would find sheep shearing easier.
Don’t blink
Swiss tuning firm Sportec has unveiled a fire-breathing monster based on the Porsche 911 turbo. Still featuring the original’s rather conservative 3,6 litre displacement, but with a considerable amount of tweaking behind it, the flat six-cylinder motor produces a mind-blowing 858bhp, enough to despatch the 0-100km/h run in 3 seconds.
But it’s the 0-300km/h time of just 18,9 seconds that will have even Bugatti Veyron owners taking careful note.  Top speed has been track tested at over 385km/h.
With its Porsche 4WD system left intact, all this grunt equates to having a Golf GTI engine powering each wheel! What’s puzzling though, is how this car comes to be developed in Switzerland, which has quite the strictest drive-by noise regs in the business and a police force that falls over itself to stop anyone reaching the giddy speed of 111km/h.
Driving licence myths
There’s an unshakeable belief common to most governments that the issue of a driving licence is absolute proof that the holder is perfectly capable of driving properly. The fact that in this part of the world, the issue of driving licences is sadly influenced by matters that have nothing to do with driving is just one further problem.
In many countries, it’s quite possible for someone who has never driven on a multi-lane motorway to pass a driving test. Days later, the individual is unleashed into a motorised jungle of cars driving at different speeds across a significant number of lanes which receive and unleash cars at a bewildering pace.
There’s also never a thought given to teaching physical car control in situations that require more than just the ability to follow a given direction. Every new driver should be given a course in car control on a skid pan just as every new driver should be exposed to emergency braking procedures from a practical and theoretical sense.
Before the L plate comes off, they should be familiar with understeer, oversteer, four wheel skids and any other issue relating to loss of driver control.
Whatever Plod and his cohorts may keep regurgitating about speed being to blame for virtually every accident, the fact of the matter is that poor judgment and indifferent car control is more often the culprit and it all stems from lousy training in the formative years.