DAY 2: Attack of the Koreans

On the second day of carsmas, my true love gave to me: attack of the Koreans bae-by!

My first encounter with the Koreans happened somewhere in the late 90s or the early 2000s when were in the market for a new family car and dad got excited about a little Korean brand called Kia and their SUV called the Sportage. They were ugly little boxes with not much to offer and very questionable reliability and track record. It was no Toyota RAV-4 or Honda CRV.  While my dad did find the quirky Korean fascinating, the idea of procuring one was quickly shot down by the rest of the household, for all the right reasons I’m happy we didn’t end up with a Kia of the past.

Attack of the Koreans!

Kia and Hyundai are the largest car manufacturers from Korea. They are infamous for budget hatchbacks, sedans and SUVs. They gave us family cars like the Kia Sportage, Kia Optima, Kia Cadenza, Hyundai Elantra, Hyundai i10, i20 etc.

Words like quality, handling and power did not exist in their books. They were affordable, easy to maintain and sort of reliable. That was their USP. It worked – mostly.

But all that changed in the 2010s when Hyundai and Kia decided they needed to be better. They needed to give their German and Japanese rivals a thorough spanking and rob their loyal customers from right under their noses.

Hyundai went after the ultra-luxury market with the Genesis brand. The G70, G80 and G90 are tech heavy luxury sedans with plush interiors and all the features that rivals offer for lesser money. Some of these cars are genuinely good. The only thing standing in their way is the brand itself. It doesn’t carry the right value – yet.

Hyundai and Kia also decided to take on the track stars in the 2010s.

Hyundai has a new ‘N’ performance line (much like BMWs M). In its first wave of attack, the N line went after the German hot hatches with the i30N and Veloster N. The new Hyundai hot hatches made 270 hp and did 0-60 in 6.1 seconds. They are manual only which improved their fun factor and they sound incredible.

In 2018, the i30N even went on to win the World Touring Car Championship.

It’s a shame Hyundai does not sell one of these in the GCC as of yet.

Kia went on to poke the bigger German dogs (BMW M3s and Mercedes C63s) with a rear/all-wheel drive sportback called the Stinger. Powered by a 3.3L twin-turbo V6, the Stinger GT puts out 365 hp at the crank, does the run to 60 mph in 4.6 seconds and has a top speed of 270 kmph.

The interiors on these cars have gotten considerably nicer too. Hard plastics have mostly been replaced with leather and soft touch material. The infotainment isn’t something we’d spend time crying about. There is radar guided cruise control, lane keep assist, parking assist and other great features.

The Koreans are making “legit” cars now. The rest of the world better watch out.

12 Days of Carsmas

That rounds up day 2 of carsmas: the attack of the Koreans.

Check in daily as we post a new car for every day of carsmas.

You can see the entire list here: https://mikaniki.com/news/2019/12/the-12-days-of-carsmas/