Aiming to be
Top Car Maker
- Hyundai Motor prepares to open its Alabama plant May 20

The Hyundai Motor Automotive Group is ready to launch a new marketing offensive in the U.S. car market by upgrading the quality of its vehicles.
The group's chairman Chung Mong-koo expressed confidence that Hyundai Motor would be able to make further inroads into the U.S. car market this year with improved quality of its cars. He recently toured the motor company's United States assembly plant in Alabama.
He personally inspected the assembly lines, and parts that go into making the cars. He also rode in cars that just came off the assembly lines to inspect their performances including acceleration.
The chairman, while touring the plant, said Sonatas assembled at the Alabama plant should be able to win over its customers by becoming a top quality sedan in the world, which is the only way to survive in the intensely competitive global auto market. He called on all workers at the plant to do their best to produce the best car in the world, which can only be achieved when they put every ounce of energy they have into the job. He drove a Sonata himself to check its function. He told workers that they are top professionals who turn out one of the best cars in the world, adding that they should tighten every bolt in cars as a proud technician with hope that cars they produce will be one of the best brands in the world.
In the meantime, Hyundai Motor has an ambitious plan to make Sonata score IQS 80, a top level in the world so that it would be a leading car in the world under a strategy that it should strive to produce the best car in terms of quality to survive in the tough world of competition in the global automobile industry.
Recently, a major U.S. daily U.S.A. Today carried an article on the largest Korean auto maker in its recent edition under the headline, "Hyundai, Kia shift gears to overtake competition." The daily said the Korean car maker stepped up its marketing campaign aimed at the middle class customers by expanding its investment and sales outlets and introducing new models. The article boosted the pride of workers at the Alabama plant with the auto maker getting world recognition for its cars and they are doing all they can to make best cars in the world.
The report under its sub headline entitled, "Be aware, Big three, its not only Japanese car makers, but also Hyundai and Kia should be watched for their high-speed performance," and a high-ranking official for Toyota's U.S. operation, said only Hyundai and Kia are chasing after Toyota, in a show of concern for the fast catching up Korean auto makers.
The report detailed how the Korean car makers have been growing while GM and Ford have slowed down and the Korean auto makers have emerged as challengers to Japan's big three auto makers, Toyota, Honda and Nissan.
Hyundai has been preparing for the May 20 opening of its auto plant in Alabama to make sure that its cars will be top quality models to secure a base to lead forward as a top global auto maker.
In the meantime, the automotive group announced the launching of its new global brand management strategy, in which Hyundai and Kia will pursue differentiated brand images as a means of boosting the group's overall market share and increasing the value of the two brands.
Under the new strategy, Hyundai and Kia will be promoted under separate brand slogans. The Hyundai slogan; "Drive your way," is designed to communicate the company's "refined and confident" brand attributes, while the slogan "The Power to surprise" is aimed at embodying the "exciting and enabling" value of the Kia brand.
Chairman Chung said "These new brand identities have been established to ensure complete differentiation between Hyundai and Kia as well as from our global competitors. We are confident that these new identities will result in significant synergies, thereby creating additional market share for each brand, since each company targets very different customers with different lifestyles." nw