HS on: Korean cars and xenophobia/koreophobia

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You know how creepy people go birdwatching on weekends and everyone finds them a bit retarded? Well, I'm one of those creepy people, except I like cars. So, the other day I went out carwatching. That wasn't very much fun though...

Finland, like many other places in the last few years, has been overrun by the Koreans. Wherever you go there's always a Hyndai or KIA lurching about in your peripheral vision, ruining your day with boredom.

The reason for this recent Korean invasion is that the Koreans finally managed to merge with the natural automotive habitat of each country, blend in so to say, and that's just fine on my part, mostly. My beef is that Hyndais and KIAs, unlike BMWs and other cool things, are a bit too dull and  polarbear-sensitive, not exactly dedicated carwatchers material. Or are they?

As I was walking around the city-center observing KIAs and Hyndais I smirkingly thought to myself  "oh man, I remember 5 years ago when no-one would set their foot in a Korean car, other people sure are xenophobic...", and then it hit me. I'm a dirty, filthy, sneaking xenophobe too;


BMWs and Hyndais share the same parts, except I hate the particular parts that end up in the Hyndais. And there's the Hyndai Coupé, why do I automatically resent it on a cellular level? Why do I feel obliged to hate the new Hyndai Veloster even when I know it's decent? Or the KIA K9 concept? Or the KIA Kee concept? and the list goes on...


Only one denominating factor exists. They're Korean. The bottom-line is the Koreans could make the best sports-car known to man and still be deemed garbage by petrolheads simply because "Korean cars are extremely average and eventless"; The presumption that lives in all of our brains. A mere updated version of the presumption that occupied our brains five years ago when "Phh, Koreans can't build cars" was the standard.

A Korean sports-car is bound to flop, and the Hyndai Veloster is the most recent case of proof. The car itself is actually not half bad. The only real issue is that it's a Hyndai. The conflict occurs because the car is built for petrolheads.

Petrolheads will hate the Veloster from the beginning and not buy it because of the associations generated by the name Hyndai, and if that isn't enough to put them off, they certainly won't buy it because they'll get laughed at by fellow petrolheads at work, and normal people won't care about the Veloster because they just want to go from place A to place B comfortably. So by that logic the Veloster has no market. In fact, no Korean sports-car has a market unless some urgent marketing-propaganda from the Koreans' side is applied. They'd have to realize this pretty soon if they ever want to get past the image of merely providing oversized vacuum-cleaners with a long warranty...

I bet if you'd slap a Citroen-badge on the Veloster you could sell the crap out of it as a "sporty coupe DS3". Branding is a motherf'ker, and that's where the battle is ultimately won. Nobody can rationally explain why they'd rather have a Mustang over a Vauxhall VXR8 because the Vauxhall is just simply better, but still everyone wants the Mustang. That's playing with emotions, or in other words effective marketing. Someone should translate that into Korean... Maybe they'd get it then...

Hopefully in five years the Koreans have gotten far enough for me to be able to like the Veloster without feeling embarrassed. I can only hope.


-HS


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