Hyundai continues its carbon-copy benchmarking activities
Its asking a lot to see Korean originality when it comes to all things with 4 tires and a platform.
This weekend I saw a TV commercial previewing a new passenger van. The vehicle strikingly resembled a Nissan Elgrand. Immediately a string of questions started pulsing through my head… OMG, is Nissan entering the Korean market? Wouldn’t that cannibalize its stablemate, Renault-Samsung Motors (RSM)? …and as soon as it began, all those questions slammed into a brick wall going 100. The commercial was for an upcoming Hyundai Starex model. D’oh!
Back in 2003 I participated in a week long Hyundai-Kia car clinic. From those getting-to-know-your-customers-and-their-needs sessions, the current fraternal twins, Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage, were born. And now another can be added to the list. For the Starex exercise we brought in from overseas both the Legrand and the Renault Trafic.
The Starex is available almost everywhere except the N. American market. Its original design was benchmarked lifted from the Mitsubishi Delica L400. It underwent a refresher facelift a couple years ago which left it with a googly-eyed fascia which resembles the Kia Morning city car.1 A complete disaster. And now the latest version is a carbon copy of the Elgrand. I just hope their engineers can match Japanese product integrity quid pro quo.
I’m itching to see the new Starex in person.
- Goes against the grain of the concept of design DNAs. Increases confusion and hampers visual distinction between a Hyundai product versus a Kia↩
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