Rare Rides: The Hyundai Pony From 1986, Which Delighted All of Canada
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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as a canadian living in Vancouver, i remember these ''korean chevettes'' very well. As in i couldnt stand them. Yes, they were very cheap to buy new. And they were of cheap quality, cheap interior, drove like a cheap pile of crap that it was. I knew a few people who bought them as a 4-5 year old used car and they even joked at what a miserable shitbox it was to own and drive. Honestly , a person could have bought a used 4-6 year old honda civic, toyota corolla, nissan sentra, ETC, and had a more reliable, fun to drive vehicle with a better resale value then a brand new Pony (or any hyundai) back then .
I was shopping for my first car when the Pony went on sale. I remember a salesman saying something along the lines of "Why buy used when you can get a new car with financing at the same monthly payment?" True enough, but even though I had never financed anything before I knew the difference between a loan and a lease. The same thing happened at a Subaru lot where they also sold Skodas. Drove them both and I'd have to say I would have chosen the Skoda over the Pony. Fortunately I was savvy enough to avoid them both so I bought a used MGB instead. I had friends with Ponies (Ponys?) tell me I was crazy. In fact that's what pretty much everyone said, but I sold the MG fifteen years later for close to what I paid for it, and you couldn't have said the same about a Pony (or Skoda). One family I knew loved their Pony, and bought an Excel as soon as they came out. It was gone within two years and they never bought another Hyundai. I still see the occasional Pony, but I can't remember the last time I saw a first generation Excel. Or Skoda. Or Lada. Or any of the other new cars a used car buyer like myself might have been tempted by. Was the MG a good buy? No comment, but it was a hell of a lot of fun...