Hyundai’s determination to elevate its brand from value to “affordable quality” status will gather momentum by 2010 as the Sonata’s replacement, badged the i40, generates “serious numbers” across Europe.
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The Ford Mondeo-sized, upper-medium model -unusually to debut in wagon form before the sedan – will, according to Hyundai Motor UK’s managing director Tony Whitehorn, maintain progress made in lower sectors by the smaller i10 and i30 models.
He believes that a fleet sales initiative in Britain could help achieve annual sales for the i40 of between 5,000 and 10,000 units compared with just 250 Sonatas, many of them taxis, sold last year.
Whitehorn, hired from Toyota at the end of 2005, said: “We are moving confidently from value brand to affordable quality and it is a striking car, designed in Europe for European tastes.”
He admitted entering the fiercely competitive upper medium corporate sector, against Ford’s Mondeo and the new General Motors Europe Vauxhall/Opel Insignia, was an: “immense challenge” but said: “We must build brand credibility and fleet people respond to how ‘user choosers’ perceive products. Contract hire rates are strongly influenced by residual values and on that front the i10, i30 and Santa Fe have excelled.”
Hyundai’s ambitious moves upmarket will not involve the Genesis, a BMW 7-Series sized saloon, because Whitehorn is pragmatic enough to know status-conscious UK premium car buyers would consider its introduction “one step too far.”
Instead he is bidding, along with other right-hand-drive markets, to gain relatively small but significant supplies of the Genesis’ GBP30,000-plus coupe counterpart, powered by V6, 300-horsepower and two-litre turbo 210hp petrol engines. Early 2010 is the target introduction time.
Meanwhile Hyundai’s rapid model renewal programme gathers pace in January next year with the i20 replacement for the Getz while, later in 2009, the Tucson SUV will be superseded by the iX.
2010 will also see a pair of MPVs – a seven-seater Opel/Vauxhall Zafira-sized people carrier and a smaller Meriva-scale model. But the company’s most radical newcomer in the same year is expected to the Velostar crossover between coupe, MPV and hatchback.
To cater for the influx of new models and higher volumes, reaching 33,000 units in the UK despite the credit crunch, the Korean brand is applying a new showroom identity across its European network from next spring. The changes will apply to 2,500 dealers across 28 countries.
A ‘Scandinavian-style’ white and brown colour scheme with grey slate floors plus mandatory features including an ‘image’ wall are part of “transforming the places where the customer touches the product” noted Whitehorn.
Hugh Hunston
