History Lesson: KDM #blogpost

KDM…Who actually gives a toss? Well I sure do because I’m weird like that.

Badge engineering is not big of a deal. It happens all around the world. However, Korea took it to a whole new level. Before I go in to the details, I’ll give you a quick history lesson.

The first car ever to be in the Korean soil is a 1903 Ford Model A limousine. It was meant to be a ceremonial wagon for the Go-Jong emperor. However, they ditched the plan because it was too loud and fast for the emperor and they thought it would ruin the emperor’s swag.

Therefore, the first car to be actually used is a 1910 Daimler Limousine. Driven by the emperor Soon-Jong.

Now here is the fun part. The first car ever to be built in Korea was a 1955 Si-Bal. It was built off of the Jeeps that were left after the Korean war.

original Si-Bal

The body panels were made by straightening barrels(!) And at first, the only mechanical part they built was the cylinder heads. As time goes by, they started building their own blocks, clutches, etc.

The size of the factory was smaller than a bicycle factory at that time. Also, the car was not selling because it was not as good as the imported, streamlined cars. However, the president was interested at the car and called the factory to claim the President’s award. The president said that it is our own car because it is made with more than 50% Korean parts. And president ordered 500 of these jeeps to become a taxi.(the company failed to make 500 these in time because the factory was so small)

Now, you might think the barrel body is shocking. However, it is nothing compared to it’s name: Si-Bal. It means starting point in Chinese.(most eastern Asian languages root from Chinese) So, what’s the problem? The problem is that Ssi-Bal means f*ck in Korean. The English equivalent would be naming a car ‘Vuck’. To make things worse, the car had a viral commercial song. If I convert it in to English, it would go like “Vuck, Vuck, our Vuck, let’s drive the Vuck around the country~”.

Si-Bal taxi

Besides Si-Bal,(which is closer to recycled than developed) every single car was badge engineered or imported. Daewoo imported Toyota and GM, Hyundai imported Ford and Mitsubishi, and Kia imported a lot of stuff, but mainly Mazda. These companies did this not just because of the money, but also while they import cars, they reverse engineer the cars and learn how to build one as well.

A lot of Koreans would say that the Hyundai Pony was the first true Korean car. It was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and built from ground up in 1976.

That's a big change

Now I said built from ground up, not developed from ground up. Yes, this is a re-bodied Mitsubishi Lancer.(wah wah)

That’s 1970’s for you, now the 80’s!

Hyundai Pony(Excel) is now fwd, uglier, and became the corner stone of the Korean car stereotype.(even though the 3 door hatchbacks were built in Japan by Mitsubishi) But Koreans back then didn’t give a toss because we exported a car!

Hyundai replaced the Ford Cortina with again Giorgetto Giugiaro designed Hyundai Stella with copied Cortina chassis. What I mean by copied is that during this time, Ford declined to extend the Hyundai’s partnership, and Hyundai had to partner up with Mitsubishi. Because of this, Hyundai had to develop the Stella quickly and without a proper quality test. That is why this unreliable crap had a rwd Ford-like chassis with a Mitsubishi engine. This also helped further developing the stereotype and the reason why no one in Korea bought the first gen Sonata.(It was a better equipped Stella)

Hyundai Sonata also started in the 80’s. The car sold pretty good in Canada, but pretty much none in Korea because Koreans knew that it was just a blinged out Stella, which translates to even more unreliable car. The car was so shameful, Hyundai erased it from history for a while by claiming that the second gen Sonata was the first Sonata. Then later included the real first gen because the later versions of Sonata did very good. (those cheeky bast…)

Last but not least, the Hyundai Grandeur.

But, before I tell you about the Grandeur, let me first tell you the 80’s luxury car game in Korea. Because of the oil shock, Korea decided to ban cars with more than 4 cylinders. Because of this, Daewoo, which was partnered with GM, pumped out 4 cylinder luxury car based on Opel. Because of this, high ranked officers used Daewoo cars almost exclusively. Thanks to the government, only thing Daewoo had to do was update the car here and there, and just milk the reputation.

Then, Hyundai joined the luxury car game. And Hyundai had Mitsubishi on their side.

Developed between Hyundai and Mitsubishi, it is called Mitsubishi Debonair-V in Japan. This became the new king in Korea. One who had a Grandeur also had a chauffeur. There even was a mafia specifically robbing people with a Grandeur. A little while after the launch, the 4 cylinder only law was expired. Daewoo quickly launched the inline 6 Daewoo Imperial, based on the Opel Senator, thinking that the car will win back the customers. But, Mitsubishi also had a 6 cylinder, a 3 liter V6 engine. V6 Grandeur dominated the Imperial, making the Imperial one of the biggest shame in Daewoo history.(they only sold 863 Imperials)

Opposite thing happened in Japan, however. The sale of the Mitsubishi Debonair flopped because of the Toyota Crown. Mitsubishi then reached out to AMG(that AMG) to do a appearance package(not performance package). The sale still flopped.

You are now probably expecting me to write about the 80’s Kia. Welp, tough luck because Kia built jack sh*t in the 80’s. Kia was still importing cars from all around the world, from Mazda van to Lincoln Town Car. All they did was buying licenses and building them in Korea.

So next up, Daewoo. And oh boy did Daewoo took a massive drop. As mentioned before, Daewoo was the jam in the late 70’s to early 80’s. However, after the Imperial f^ckary, Daewoo’s reputation just absolutely shattered. The Imperial was great in theory; smooth straight 6, American design, top notch technologies like LCD speedo and Bosch ABS. However, what it actually did was overheat and break. Daewoo tried to get there sh!t together and built a mid sized sedan based on Opel Rekord E called Prince. However, Hyundai just finished developing the 2nd gen Sonata…Sooo….Daewoo is now deeply screwed. As Daewoo spiral off into the distance, the 90’s began.

Daewoo killer

I’m not going to write much about the 90’s because many of you already went through it.
Hyundai absolutely dominated Daewoo, Kia decided to license and build a fwd Lotus Elan for some reason, SsangYong and Samsung started building cars as well.

SsangYong somehow managed to get a partnership from Mercedes-Benz and started their business pretty well. The cars shared the platform, parts, and most importantly, engines. However, and I quote from Mr. Regular from Regular Car Reviews, When they break, ooooh they break catastrophically. The repair cost made the rich rather scared. SsangYong made licensed Jeeps for a living. Then suddenly, luxury sedan! The car is called Chairman and is based on the famous Benz W124 platform. Daewoo wanted to have a successful luxury sedan so bad after the massive downfall, Daewoo bought SsangYong and started to build Chairman for themselves.

However, in 2001 Daewoo died and GM replaced the spot.(dem feels)

Many models did pretty good, but the finance management was terrible and became famous for a massive demonstration. After the demo, SsangYong was sold to Shanghai Motors. Then, Shanghai Motors turned out be a d!ck.(sucking the technology and not helping the company out) After miraculously canceling the contract, SsangYong was later sold to Mahindra.

Samsung also stated to build cars in the 90’s. What the company did was just partner up with Renault-Nissan alliance. Nothing special.

I could write more but my passion for this article dried up… Now I just want eat a lasagna