Overview & Reviews

A relative newcomer to the American marketplace, Hyundai is a Korean automaker with a product line that has improved greatly over the past decade. Hyundai cars and SUVs provide a high level of content for an affordable price, and are currently backed by one of the industry's longest warranties.

In 1947, Chung Ju Yung founded the Hyundai Civil Engineering Company. Mere months later, the outfit was bombed in the Korean War. However, the company regained its footing to distinguish itself as one of Korea's leading construction enterprises during the 1950s.

By the late 1960s, Chung had turned his attention to the automobile industry. The Korean government at that time believed that it made more sense to import vehicles than produce them domestically, and had made its opinion known. Still, Chung opted to follow his own convictions, and in 1967, he founded the Hyundai Motor Company.

The company quickly established an alliance with one of the industry's oldest automakers, signing a two-year contract with Ford in 1968 to share assembly technology. Hyundai's first car, the Cortina, was created from that partnership. The manufacturer's first car to be designed and built in Korea was the compact Pony (although the car was based on Japanese technology courtesy of Mitsubishi). The vehicle made its debut in 1974, and the following year Hyundai began exporting it to overseas markets.

Hyundai entered the U.S. market in 1986 with the introduction of its subcompact Excel. The car was an immediate hit, with its supreme affordability being a primary selling point. More than 100,000 Excels were sold stateside in the first seven months. By 1988, Hyundai had begun to produce cars using its own technology. The midsize Sonata was the first fruit borne of this endeavor.

Unfortunately, Hyundai's nascent image was soon tarnished by the poor durability and reliability of its vehicles. Sales tanked. However, rather than abandon the American market in the '90s, Hyundai chose to invest heavily in new product designs and improvements in overall quality and reliability. In 1998, Hyundai also purchased Kia, another Korean automaker, to expand its business and economies of scale.

It all started to pay off by the start of the new millennium, with the 2001 Elantra in particular showing massive improvements in overall quality, reliability and performance. Other models followed suit and the desirability of Hyundai cars increased sharply. Providing an extraordinarily long warranty period didn't hurt either.

Today's lineup is indicative of Hyundai's complete turnaround. Hyundai has a vehicle for nearly every segment, including the economical Accent subcompact, the popular Elantra compact, the midsize Sonata sedan (also available as a hybrid), sporty Genesis and Veloster coupes and a couple of stylish SUVs. Hyundai has also expanded into the entry-level and premium-level luxury sedan markets with its Genesis and Equus sedans. Having gone from being the butt of late-night TV jokes in the 1980s to a well-respected manufacturer of quality vehicles, Hyundai has created a very inspiring rags-to-riches story.

User Reviews:

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  Santa Fe - 2005 Hyundai Santa Fe
  By AR - March 29 - 2:50 pm

  This is a review of my first Santa Fe purchased in 2001. 137000 trouble free miles. I dont see any major changes in the 2005. Im sure the 2005 will be better.

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  Love my Tib - 2001 Hyundai Tiburon
  By Gina - March 29 - 10:00 am

  This car is my baby! I got what I paid for, its obviously not a lexus, but way less problems than any other car I owned. The Power windows was a known issue and the Dealership will fix any little thing I can complain about! Its a great car to drive, looks really cool too.

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  my tib - 2004 Hyundai Tiburon
  By Jmurph - March 29 - 10:00 am

  I love my car...the styling is awesome and the performance was SURPRISINGLY excellent.This car has balls.Along with the engine being good, the sound system is amazing for a stock car, im constantly getting asked if i have a system in my car. And for a reasonable price you can get the GT model.

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  Love My Deep Blue Tib - 2003 Hyundai Tiburon
  By Rick Bergeron - March 29 - 10:00 am

  The body styling makes this a real head- turner. I often get the "what kind of car is that" question. Ive put 22,000 miles on it so far and they have been very good miles. It is comfortable to drive, very responsive, and a real joy to drive.

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  My second car - 2003 Hyundai Tiburon
  By Stickelpower - March 29 - 10:00 am

  We where shopping for a second car. First is a Minivan and an old 93 concorde beater when we stumbled onto the Hyandai Tiburon. I think its the most bang and fun for the buck.

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  Lexus for 1/2 the price. - 2004 Hyundai XG350
  By DWright - March 29 - 10:00 am

  Absolutely LOVE my XG350L. Its like a Lexus for 1/2 the price. Features galor. Beautiful inside and out. Have not encountered the transmission issue mentioned in the editors review. It does have some body roll in quick tight turns and undulates a bit when driving fast on bumpy roads, but if I wanted a more sporty ride for more enthusiatic driving, I would have bought something else. What I wanted was a luxurious, smooth riding, touring vehicle. Thats exactly what I got. Simply a great car for a great price.

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  Not Bad - 2003 Hyundai Elantra
  By Bank - March 29 - 10:00 am

  It has pretty good power for what it is. It is just as quick as my wifes ION2 5-speed.In fact it felt quicker than most of the cars I drove in the same class. I drove the Mazda Protega-5 (DOG), Nissan Sentra 1.8, Vibe, Corolla, and Matrix. It felt as fast, if not faster, than all of those cars. I hope the car holds up. That is the risk with Hundai, but I have heard they are getting better and better. Had a little problem with the dealer but they ended up doing the right thing.

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  Excellent SUV Great Value - 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe
  By Sandilands - March 29 - 10:00 am

  As a body shop owner and a Santa Fe owner this vehicle is wonderful. Ive driven almost all the others and this one is by far the best and the warranty is excellent. We bought one after fixing four of them. They are built well, and Hyundai really cares about their customers. We may even buy a second one and will trade this one in in 2005 for another one.

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  Extremely Impressive for a "Compact Economy Car" - 2017 Hyundai Elantra
  By Wikoli (Victor) - March 29 - 3:46 am

  Traded a 2014 Sonata SE with sport and tech packages, which was a great car, no problems for a 2017 Elantra Limited with Tech and Ultimate packages. This is a totally new Elantra from the 2016 and I think Hyundai hit a home run. Had our choice of blue/black or red/beige. The blue was a March 2016 man date with 95 miles and looked abused and demoed poorly with sluggish acceleration. The red/beige was a July 2016 man date with 8 miles and demoed great with spirited acceleration and looked beautiful, and was very clean and still had new car smell. So we went for the red. Very impressed with the quietness for such a small car (aircraft grade chassis adhesives.). Very impressive for a "compact economy car". First tank was 36 MPG. Great nav and entertainment on the sharp 8" display. Incredible Infinity audio system, best since our 2007 Nissan Rockford Fosgate. No CD, so well have to transfer our music. Beautiful interior with dash setup same as new Sonata. They separated the climate control display and outside temp display from the LCD, good move. Got the Continental tires instead of the Korean ones, dont know, but Im assuming theyre better. Drawbacks are steering is a little compact-ish, just a little stiff and pulls slightly side to side on uneven roads curvy roads. Also, the suspension, which is actually pretty firm, but it will waddle a little on the road and in parking lots with sudden direction changes. These are my only complaints, which are minor. And Im comparing it to the Sonata with the sport package the drove like it was on rails. And the Elantra of course is more comfortable and quiet. Quality, fit and finish is impressive. Only exception was the RR door which is sticking out very very slightly on the latch side. The 1.6L engine runs great and has decent power, and has multi-point fuel injection, which is much preferable over direct injection (the 2.4 GDI Theta II direct injection on the Sonata has a recall on it). The 6 speed auto is extremely smooth. New exterior styling beautiful, toned down a bit and more European. Excellent nav, audio, interior (obviously some hard plastics), beautiful leather seats, blind spot monitoring, lane departure, adaptive cruise, auto dimming RV mirror with homelink, heated F&R seats, power drivers seat with 2 memory settings, rear view camera, sunroof, auto opening trunk, what can I say? After $6500 in rebates and discounts, its like a mini luxury car for 21.5 K. Perfect for my five foot wife. Did immediately install a K&N air filter which gives you a couple of extra horse on the 4-banger. Heres hoping no serious recalls on the engine or anything else. These new cars are so high tech you never know.

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  Hyundai is #1 - 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe
  By Oliver - March 28 - 9:06 pm

  I love the car. It looks and drives very well. Loaded with power seats and DVD player is only 32,000! Thats good compared to Honda Pilot or even Acura MDX.