Hooniverse Early Korean Car Weekend – The Hyundai Excel
Welcome to the Sunday Edition of the Hooniverse Early Korean Car Weekend. This weekend is used as a celebration as to how far the Korean Car Companies have come as far as quality, reliability, and even desirability. There was a time in which the cars built in South Korea were vehicles that you settled for rather than ones that you really wanted, and you only have to look at certain events within this country to see why that was. Starting in 1981, there was the Voluntary Import Restriction campaign imposed on all the Japanese brands coming into the United States. This was seen as a way of protecting the Domestic Market Brands, but it actually did the exact opposite. Because of this restriction (which limited Japanese car imports to just 1.68-million for the first year) Japanese manufacturers started setting up plants here in the US for mass market vehicles, dealers who sold Japanese brands started using “Adjusted Market Value” price hikes for these brands, and the cars that were being imported started to be higher content or luxury brands like Honda’s Acura line. But it also opened up the market to a Korean upstart in 1986, Hyundai. With a price starting at around $5,000, and with a better perceived quality image (at least over the Yugo introduced a year earlier) the 1986 Hyundai Excel sold close to 170,000 units. This was the first Korean Car introduced here in the US.
The Hyundai Excel was the first front wheel drive car produced by Hyundai, with handsome styling penned by Italian Master Designer Giorgetto Giugiaro of Ital Design. The Excel was the first Hyundai car to be exported to the United States starting in 1986 and was available in 3-door hatchback, 5-door hatchback, and 4-door sedan models. Early models were powered by a Mitsubishi derived 1.5L 4-cylinder engine with an electronic carburetor that produced a staggering 68HP. Depending on equipment level, you could choose between a 4-speed manual, a 5-speed manual, or a 3-speed Automatic transmission, and what a slug the Automatic must have been.
In the United States it was the company’s first and only model, but thanks to a price of $4,995 and being voted ‘Best Product #10′ by Fortune magazine, it set records for a first-year import by selling 168,882 units, helping push the company’s cumulative production past one million by 1986. Similar sales success was replicated in Australia, where it was priced at A$9,990. Sales soon dropped as serious quality problems emerged with the car. The second-generation Excel was given a facelift and slightly enlarged from 1989 onwards, while its engine adopted sequential fuel injection, and a new 4-speed automatic transmission was offered.
The Excel was also sold in the United States by Mitsubishi Motors from 1987 to 1994 as the badge engineered Mitsubishi Precis. Available as either a 3- or 5-door hatchback, the Precis remained in the Mitsubishi range as a “price leader,” slotted below the Mirage until it was discontinued in 1992. This was alo a way for Mitsubishi Dealers to sell product without violating the Voluntary Import Restrictions placed upon the Manufacturer.
Originally, the Excel was supposed to be replaced by the Elantra in 1990, but ended up being sold for four more seasons until being replaced by the Hyundai Accent in 1994. You would think that with such a throwaway car, there wouldn’t be any left for sale, but you would be wrong.
Here is a 1986 Hyundai Excel 5-door Hatchback available in Hood River, Oregon. According to the listing:
1986 Hyundai Excel GLS
- Tires are next to new
- Replaced motor 82k
- 5 speed overdrive (standard)
- economic
- hatchback
- sunroof
- car runs and drives great
- no major dents, body of car is in good condition, paint a slight faded from sun.
- no major interior tears$750 OBO
Cash only please
And here is a 1989 Excel 5-door Hatchback available in the Reading area of Pennsylvania. According to the listing:
Just inspected.. good till 9/12
Excellent running condition!!
60,000 miles,
4 cyl, manual transmission,
a/c, power steering, power brakes,
manual windows, alloy wheels.
$1599 cash only, no spam
It’s funny, but both listings state that they want cash only…. and are these two Hyundai Excel models even worth this amount of money. (They may be just for the scrap value alone, but who knows). See the listing for the 86 Excel here, and for the 89 Excel here. Whatever you think of Hyundai, you have to admit that they are light years ahead of where they were back then.
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You know who excelled today? Vettel. You know who else excelled this weekend? You, Jim. You know what never excelled? The Excel.
Excellently put, your Excellence.
Having recently ridden in a new Sonata, I'm honestly surprised they've become a pretty decent car.
It'll take Kia another decade, but they'll likely get there, eventually.
Go look at a new Optima, Kia's there.
The car in the lead photo is badged Excel AMX.
A worthier successor to that marque never did I see.
Excel gets picked on often, but is it really any worse than, say, Mitsubishi Lancer from the same era? The only thing that was "Hyundai" was the styling and assembly, mechanicals were all Mitsu.
Scary Excel.[youtube JwItqJomtFY&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwItqJomtFY&feature=player_embedded youtube]
I didn't see that movie until a few years ago. Maybe it wasn't at the time, but looking back on that it was a perplexing and unintentionally hilarious bit of automotive casting.
My college roommate had an '87 Excel- it was only 3 years old at the time. Already the interior plastic was dry and chalky and sounded like it was about to rattle itself apart at any second.
If you look at 3 yr old cars today, they're pretty much new if not abused. Those things just didn't age well.
It never left him stranded- traded it in on one of the 1st Saturn SL-1s.
My girlfriend at the time bought one new. It was a truly awful car.
My senior year AP English teacher (in 1998) drove an immaculate 1986 Excel. It was an early model with the sealed beam headlights and "hub caps" that covered the lug nuts on the stock steel wheels. For some reason I thought that was notable because I had not seen that particular combination before.
<img src="http://productioncars.com/send_file.php/hyundai_excel_silver_1986.jpg">
There's a 2nd gen Precis parked a block from here, all stickered up with Mitsubishi logos and it even has fake "vortex generators" a la Lancer Evo stuck on the rear of the roofline.
The interesting thing about the Excel was it's "5sp" transmission. It was actually the old Colt twin stick 4sp where putting it in "5th" actually re-engaged 4th gear and closed a switch. That switch controlled vacuum solenoids that operated the "range" shaft and essentially put it in the economy range in "5th" and the power range for 1-4 and reverse.
My friend's mother had a 1990 Excel that her parents bought for her brand new. She was an aging hippie vagabond. She disappear for months at a time and come back in the Excel with a new dent or scrape or hippie event bumper sticker.
The last time I saw it was in 2000. It had close to 300,000 miles on it. The windshield was taped in because she left the hood unlatched and it popped open at highway speed and destroyed the original windshield and damaged the frame that originally held the windshield in place. My friend and I put a new belt on it, changed the fluids, replaced a front wheel bearing, and then sent her on her way. A few days later it was loaded on a transporter bound for Hawaii – where she was headed for her "retirement". She sold it the first week in Hawaii for less than what someone paid to ship it there for her.
Yes, indeed as others have said, the interior was falling apart pretty much from the time she bought it. The parts of the paint that were original were fading and peeling within a few years of purchase – nicely demonstrating which of the body panels had been repainted (pretty much all of them that weren't welded on).
But it never once left her stranded anywhere on her journeys.
In 1986 my soon-to-be wife chose one to be leased for her by the company where she worked as a private detective; when she quit the job she lost the car. All's well that ends well, but in the Excel's defense they were the alternative to a used car for a part of the public unfamiliar with basic maintenance. That and the timing proximity to the Yugo in the public's mind gave them a worse reputation than the car deserved for unreliability. It really wasn't much different from my sister's Chevy Nova by NUMMI from the sam era when new.
I don't think any of the above favorable comparisons of the Hyundai Excel to its contemporaries are supportable. The first generation Excels were everywhere and then they were nowhere, just as suddenly. In this they most resembled the Chevy Citation and the Renault Alliance. The Pontiac LeMans by Daewoo was just as awful a car, but they never sold in the numbers needed to make them ubiquitous, or their departure from the roads as dramatic.
I just saw one of these yesterday. It was a notable sighting as I haven't seen one for years. Nowadays it's like seeing a Yugo or a Chevette.
I wonder if we'd think as much of 21st century Hyundais and Kias if we hadn't had this car as a benchmark to show just how far they've come.