Those early Hyundai US days were not very stellar reliability wise. Was the company telling their customers something with this copy?
Curbside Classic: 1987 Hyundai Excel – The Damn Near Deadly Sin
Vintage Ad: 1987 Hyundai Excel – Better Get a Spare?
– Posted on May 26, 2023
I clearly remember this and it didn’t take long to discover that you needed two Excels to keep one as a daily driver. My cohorts and I were all right out of university and with our new careers – car shopping. One bought this and it was the first to break down and during our weekday lunch car pools with our different choices, we were all pretty bummed that she bought a Hyundai.
New cars all bought by our group and used over the next three years:
Rich – Chevy Corsica
Kate – Toyota Tercel
Jill – Honda CRX
Al – Ford Festiva
Bridget – Pontiac LeMans
Sandy – Hyundai Excel
First to go was the Excel. Then the Pontiac was revealed to be a rolling lemon. Then the Corsica kept having problems and hated by its owner. The CRX, Tercel and Festiva ended up the winners.
A winner:
Noticed how quickly the “exterior trim” pieces were loosening, falling off when I’d see one on the road , back then.
They just didn’t inspire a closer look then.
The suggestion that “you need a spare” was unfortunate wording, no matter how unintentional it might have been. Though I wonder if the Excel’s quality troubles were widely known by 1987?
Regardless, Hyundai’s follow-up to this ad was a bit better, wording-wise:
Except… I’ve only ever seen cars stacked on one another when they’re at their final stage, waiting for the car crusher.
The whole concept struck me as strange. How many people buy two cars at once? If they do, it’s usually two cars that are quite unlike each other, often a large and/or upscale main car and a second basic commuter car, or one of them is a truck or van.
In his first COAL, Jeff Sun related that his family had the “big car” (full-size Plymouth) and the “little car” (Simca 1000).
A friend once had two Saab 96 V4’s and had some trouble making up his mind which one was the runner and which was the parts car. Of course they were both pretty much intact.
Seems like Hyundai management is a good example of not panicking and sticking it out, no matter how craptacular their initial products might have been. Other, ego-centric types might have went all-in on an Avanti-style, Hail Mary pass and doomed the company.
But Hyundai just kept plodding along with low-priced, bargain-basement offerings that, while nowhere near Toyota or Honda quality, steadily improved enough to stay competitive. Those big 5-year/60k mile bumper-to-bumper and 10-year/100k powertrain warranties certainly didn’t hurt (although there used to be a bunch of restrictive caveats to keep them active).
That, and billions of dollar financing from the South Korean government.
Good point. I would imagine that VinFast is going to be following the same business model.
That, and billions of dollar financing from the South Korean government.
Well, they remained solvent, when Kia and Daweoo both went BK,
Daewoo is owned by GM and bailed out by them. You can now buy dozens of Daewoo vehicles from GM as little Chevrolets and Buicks. After sinking billions into Daewoo, now “GM South Korea” has become a positive investment.
After being bailed out by the government, Hyundai “bought” KIA after Mazda and Ford moved on.
A coworker had an Excel, early 5 door version at that. He ran that thing until the never-replaced timing belt broke, at 186,000 miles, around 98 or 99. Went right out and bought a new Sonata, as he was completely satisfied with the Excel.
We can add this ad campaign to the list!
I’ve always believed that their slogan during this era should have been, “Well, it’s better than a Yugo!”
An era in marketing, when ads so often looked alike. With perhaps the least design creativity applied since the 1920s, during these earliest years of desktop publishing. Cookie cutter ads that took about 20 minutes to design. Goudy or Garamond typerfaces, popularized by Apple, often condensed, and tightly kerned. With tightened word spacing. Headline, product photo, body text, logo, and tagline. Set in Times New Roman, Goudy or Garamond. Rinse and repeat. Pure formula, any character could create. But agencies still charged a fortune. lol
At this point in time, the Hyundai Pony and Stellar were seen everywhere in Canada. Their eventual serious rust issues, about to become a big problem for many owners.
Hyundai made the local news today, with a donation to the Santa Cruz (California) fire department of four of their eponymous Santa Cruz trucklets. Based on how few I see on the road, this may have been both goodwill and inventory reduction. I did a little googling but couldn’t find out if Hyundai made similar donations of some other models in Santa Fe or Tucson. Ioniq EV’s outnumber the Santa Cruz here; in general Hyundai is in a far different industry position these days.
Hyundai were the first in OZ to offer a decent warranty so if you cheap new car stopped they would fix it and since its really an upcycled Mitsubishi they werent all that bad, they kept at it though and now produce cars as good as what comes from Japan and both countries are about to get nailed by the Chinese as far as cars go.
I used to think Hyundai/Kia was a serious competitor. Then I hear about how poorly they handled their ease of being stolen problem and their self destructing engines and I question if they really have.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/cars/news-blog/hyundai-and-kia-s-decade-of-very-troublesome-engines-continues-44497118
I have a friend who most always buys the cheapest new car instead of a used nicer one. Suzuki was first, not a Yugo, followed by an early Excel. I dont recall him having any particular trouble with it. Later, it was a Fiat 500, today KIA. Rust is not an issue here.
My first new car was also one of the cheapest, a Mk I Fiesta, far from trouble-free, but not a disaster. Latest is a 2nd gen Honda Fit/Jazz. Cheapest Honda, but it is a Honda, stone reliable, yet somewhat fun to drive with manual trans.
A friend in high school’s mom had one of these. It was a 1988 or ’89, and seemed to be loaded with all of the options. Aircon, automatic transmission, alloy wheels, and other bits. Brian’s family definitely made enough money to afford more than bargain basement cars, but to Hyundai’s credit, I guess this car didn’t look or feel heinously cheap and nasty… It came off as being acceptable.
I rode in it around 1995, and it didn’t have a ton of miles… I do remember the alternator failing at my house one day after school. The car was also extremely sluggish with the three speed auto, and slow to the point of hilarity with four teenage boys piled in. I think it was one of these times that Brian decided to do a neutral drop taking off from a stop sign… The car didn’t even lurch. It just started rolling across the intersection as the rpm faded away. Attempted a second time on a gravel road, the same thing happened. Not even a scratch in the gravel. And a couple of months later, the car needed a transmission.
And finally, does anyone else remember the ubiquitous Fasten Seatbelts bell chime Hyundai used in all of their early cars? My Honda Accord had one to remind you if you left your headlights on, but the Hyundai version was really amped up, going *dingdongdingdongdingdong* as the seatbelt light flashed furiously.
Early Hyundais also had an awful stench inside that took months to dissipate, apparently the result of cheap chemicals and processing.
“Those early Hyundai US days were not very stellar reliability wise.” An allusion to the Hyundai Stellar, or coincidence?
Chevrolet advertised the Cosworth Vega as “One Vega for the Price of Two.”
Finally, I had been waiting for someone to catch that ‘stellar’ coincidence.
I’ll pony up that it was intentional…
Not sure about the reliability thing. I bought a new Excel in 1989 for less than $5,000 and never had a lick of trouble with it. It was equipped pretty well too, with AC and an AM/FM stereo. I think it got a bad rap which wasn’t deserved.