I almost don't dare to say it, but for years I've absolutely detested the South Korean car brands Hyundai and Kia.
They didn't look right and had very strange names. They were just strange cars.
I think that's because they only joined in Europe later. When I was little, you had German, French and British brands. Also a number of Japanese, a few Italian, and two Swedish ones.
An American one, naturally. American cars, they were enormous sleds. You only bought those if you had your own petrol pump in your garden.
Then a few snotty kids suddenly appeared. A Hyundai Pony, do you remember it? What an abominable thing. Designed by an Italian, mind you, but probably a designer who had been fired by Alfa Romeo...
And what about those strange names? Hyundai Jerrycan, Hyundai Kutson. They were meant to represent off-road vehicles. Pfft.
In the 90s, another Korean brand joined the scene: Kia. Do you remember the Kia Sephia? It was a pretty good car, but it did look very much like a lot of other cars.
Or the Opirus. If it sped past, and you squinted your eyes almost completely shut, you could easily have thought a Mercedes was driving by. Not so.
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But I'm convinced. When Peugeot and Citroën announced last year that they were ceasing production of the smallest cars, we continued our search. Which car brands still have small models?
And indeed, we now have a good number of Kias and Hyundais in our fleet at Adrem Limburg.
It must be said: they are very satisfactory!
They are our little ones, but with gigantically more accessories than before. The difference between a pony and a car could hardly be bigger. I'm not talking about power steering, which was still a luxury in the ’70s, so it wasn't usually in the Hyundai Pony. I am sometimes amazed at how they can pack those small cars with the latest technical gadgets.
Try a Kia or Hyundai? Feel free to reserve one of our little ones!
