Rejoice Toyota fans, but this year the Camry has won the top award for the best car in Korea by the country’s Automobile Journalist Association. Toyota Korea president Hisao Nakabayashi was nearly overcome with emotion:
“Thank you. I feel great honor to win this award. It is really unexpected”, said Nakabayashi when he accepted the award during the ceremony that took place in Seoul last week.
Hyundai was visibly jilted, as their representatives, a fixture at these award shows, were nowhere to be seen. There were, however, some angry comments by Hyundai management:
A Hyundai official, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Korea Herald: “We are perplexed. It would have been a lot better if a Korean brand won the top prize.” The new Santa Fe that was handed a “special award” probably added insult to injury rather than appease the Korean automaker executives.
Interestingly, the Camrys sold in Korea are made in the good ole U.S. of A to take advantage of the KORUS FTA and to bypass the high yen:
Toyota found a way to circumvent the strong yen: it decided that the new Camry, which was introduced last January by company CEO Akio Toyoda personally, would be imported from the U.S. instead of Japan.
The thinking was that, in doing so, Toyota would take advantage of both the Korea-U.S. free trade pact and the favorable won-U.S. dollar exchange rate and keep prices down. They were right: the Camry ended 2012 as the second best-selling imported car in the country behind the BMW 520d.
At the end of the day, it would seem that the Korean consumers will be the main winners.
Hyundai, on the other hand, seeing that imports are encroaching on its market share, has already reduced prices on its flagship models and will ramp up its marketing efforts in its home market.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
I like camry. I like elantra too (though I’ve been told that I’m basically driving a sonata), but Camry feels very comfortable.
Hyundai’s failure and eventual withdrawal from the Japanese market has to make this news sting even more so. http://www.worldcarfans.com/109120123318/hyundai-pulls-out-of-japanese-market
That’s not a shame at all. Even Samsung had a tough go at it in Japan. It just shows you the Korean consumers are now far more open to buying foreign cars than Japan.
“Toyota would take advantage of both
the Korea-U.S. free trade pact and the favorable won-U.S. dollar
exchange rate and keep prices down…” and alleviate Korean consumers’ fears of radiation.
In any case, the reaction is more than a bit hypocritical given that a certain Korean automaker flaunted the fact that its cars has won similar awards abroad.
A point of diction: Hyundai was not “visibly jilted, as their representatives…were nowhere to be seen.” Hyundai may have been annoyed, or miffed, or perhaps they felt jilted, but the verb to jilt is used with reference to the party whose feelings are offended. The Automobile Journalist Association jilted Hyundai Motor. Hyundai Motor felt jilted.
Happy to see Toyotas getting the nod. The wife has a Prius, and so far, so good. But we noticed the cold weather killed the mileage. Maybe we should have bought that VW Golf instead…
The Sonata is safer than the Camry, here are the safest and cheapest 2012 cars to insure…Midsize moderately priced cars – Audi A3 – Buick Verano -
Chevrolet Malibu – Chrysler 200 4-door, – Dodge Avenger – Ford Fusion – Honda
Accord – Hyundai Sonata – Kia Optima – Subaru Legacy – Subaru Outback – Toyota
Camry – Toyota Prius v – Volkswagen Jetta sedan – Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen -
Volkswagen Passat – Volvo C30… http://articles.courant.com/2011-12-15/news/hc-safest-cars-1216-20111215_1_luxury-cars-chevrolet-cruze-hyundai-equus
I love the Hyundai comment: “A Korean car should have won.” What else is there to say? Sorry, Mr. Kim, but there was no naked cheating on this one like you’re used to.
Yeah, but the thing is, I just don’t want to own a Hyundai. I drove a Camry and really liked it. Almost bought it.. but it was too high priced. I went with a 2010 Acura TSX and I’m glad I did. The Euro cars are too unreliable. Ford has some nice stuff, but I think they want too much. Acura/ Honda hold their value really well, and Acura has a lot of nice features, especially for the price.. Plus my local dealer is awesome. They have taken really good care of me.
I think you’ll be glad that you didn’t, especially if you plan on keeping it for more than about 8 years. I shopped exhaustively recently, and every VW owner I talked to told me what I suspected: reliability is a problem, especially with the sensors/ electrical system. You will pay through the nose (at least in the USA) for repairs when you have problems. Although Subaru parts are maybe even more expensive than euro parts). And you WILL have problems. It’s tough tho.. because the Euro cars (esp the VW CC) are SO damned nice in the showroom and have such great style. I just don’t want to pay thousands extra for it. For a guy like me, who is first of all practical ( I want decent mileage and great reliability before all else) the Japanese luxuries are the best.
Korea have only 2 reliable car makers – Hyundai and Kia. Japan has 8 reliable car makers – Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Suzuki, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Daihatsu. I don’t expect many Japanese people to choose to buy foreign cars when they have many reliable domestic car makers.
I would say three and a half. GM Korea is reliable. Ssangyong, not really, but let’s see what the Indians do with it.
camry > sonata. period.
this is a big surprise. a japanese brand getting the nod in KR!!?
The gap is narrowing… quickly. Keep that in mind.
I dont’ think there’s any gap between those two cars.
cool. so it’s transitive. didn’t know that. I also learned today that “amortize” is related to mors/death.
of course, all products across the globe are “up to par” with the “best” nowadays. hyundai as a brand is just gimmicky from the get-go.
where do you get this from? there’s plenty of support for domestic brands, but korean products are selling just fine in japan. their cars are just not competitive when you bring them to japan, it’s really that simple.
The Normans really did us all a huge favor, linguistically speaking.
Or was it the Romans? Most of the Latin words brought into the English language was from the Normans.
Thanks for the reply. We test drove the Golf and loved the feel of the car. In the end, the Prius had better mileage and the dealership offered a much more attractive payment plan.
We thought about buying a Korean car, but it was like no one wanted to sell us one. At a lot of the Korean dealerships, it felt like we were interrupting the salespeople every time we asked a question. At one Kia dealer, the guy refused to let us test drive a car, claiming that none of his customers bothered, instead making their choices based on brochures and sitting in the cars on the showroom floor. We called another Kia dealership and were told they had a car we could try, but only on Tuesdays.
This is good for Hyundai.
It will motivate them to work harder to improve quality and reliability.
Wow. In this economy that’s no less than amazing.
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