HYUNDAI CONCEPT

The original Pony Coupé concept car that influenced the designs of multiple production and concept vehicles is set to be recreated by the original designers.

Hyundai have announced that they will work with Italian design firm GFG Style, notably its father and son founders Giorgetto and Fabrizio Giugiaro, to rebuild the influential 1974 Pony Coupé Concept that a young Giorgetto created for Hyundai’s debut at the 1974 Turin Motor Show. The rebuilt concept will be shown in the spring time. Hyundai Motor announced the plan during a Design Talk in Seoul, featuring Giorgetto and Fabrizio Giugiaro along with Luc Donckerwolke, Chief Creative Officer of Hyundai Motor Group, and SangYup Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Hyundai Motor’s Global

Design Center.

In 1974, when Hyundai Motor was still in its early days of vehicle production, the company’s executives contacted Giorgetto Giugiaro to propose work on designing Hyundai’s first independent model and Korea’s first mass-produced car. At the time, there was no vehicle design and styling capability in Korea, so Hyundai Motor commissioned Giugiaro to design, make blueprints and build five prototypes, one of which was a coupé. In the process of designing and prototyping, Hyundai decided to show the Pony and Pony

Coupé at the Turin Motor Show to promote the brand’s debut in the global market.

With its wedge-style nose, circular headlamps and origamilike geometric lines, the Pony Coupé was intended for North American and European markets, but the project came to a stop in 1981 just before mass production amid an adverse global economic environment. While the concept was an unfinished dream at the time, it helped kick start the Korean automotive industry by directly influencing Hyundai’s first independent production models under its Pony nameplate, which ran from 1975 to 1990 and were sold around the world. The concept design also served as a huge source of inspiration for Giugiaro’s work on the DeLorean DMC 12 that debuted in 1983.

Giugiaro said:'I designed the Hyundai Pony when I was still a young designer at the start of my career. I felt very proud that I was in charge of creating a vehicle for a company and country that was about to take on a fiercely competitive global market. Now I’m deeply honoured that Hyundai has asked me to rebuild it for posterity and as a celebration of the brand’s heritage.'