Hyundai Sonata: 25 years of loyal service and doubtful

Hyundai is present on the market of the intermediate sedan since 1985. At this time, very few people on the outside of this country took the risk to buy a car this Griffee template behalf of the South Korean manufacturer.

At the time, we have been in Quebec, all proportions guarded, the largest buyers of Hyundai Pony in the world. Followed Excel models and most serious and most popular Accent. Stellar sedan upper category also had great success since it was offered a derisory price considering its very generous list of standard equipment. But it soon became a lemon that has been crowned more than one.

In 1989, the latter was replaced by a walk on our new intermediate sedan named Sonata. In 1992, the first Hyundai car to receive some notoriety at its reliability was the Elantra compact, which quickly became the best selling car of the group, worldwide.

Adventure Quebecoise

Considering that the Quebecois had literally adopts South Korean cars and with government support more than generous, Hyundai decided to open its first assembly plant outside of South Korea, has Bromont in 1989.

This plant produces Sonata sedans for the North American market for only four years. Unfortunately, the car has very little sold in North America and we had to close the plant in 1992. If, at the time, the Sonata had been assembled in one place today Bromont work at full capacity.

Distributions of generations (South Korean Outputs):

1st generation: 1985-1987

2nd generation: 1988-1993

3rd generation: 1993-1998

4th generation: 1998-2004

5th Generation: 2004-2010

6th Generation: 2010

5 million copies sold

At Hyundai, we took nine years to sell the first million units and now it takes less than three years to achieve this goal.

With the Hyundai Sonata 6th generation which has just be commercialized in the global automotive chessboard, there is every reason to believe that in this car still going to experience much success.

Assembly our neighbors

This new version of the 2011 Sonata comes straight out of a brand new assembly line situated in Alabama. This ultra modern plant need investments of $ 1.4 billion (U.S.) and allows no more than 2,700 employees earn a good living.