It's no secret that a great variety of cars cohabit in the compact sedan segment. It's no secret that many of them are, in fact, great. And with entry-level prices starting in the $13,000s, it's a safe assumption that there's not much money to be made. Some automakers even sell them at a loss, usually to help them leap over the legal roadblock of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Korean companies, on the other hand, have no gas-guzzlers to subsidize. They're certainly not famous, and not even all that respected. If there's no money in it, why do they even try?
Simple: because everyone starts from the bottom. The consumers most accepting of the new kid are the ones who shop by price. The plan is to reel them in first, form a foundation at the bottom of the market, and build from there. Of course, when the bottom's as good as it is in 2004, even that is no easy task.
Nor is it an effective strategy when your cut-rate cars prove to have such cut-rate quality that even $4,995 feels like a rip-off in buyer retrospect. That's exactly what happened with Hyundai and its mechanical nightmare known as the Excel. It may have been 1986, but old stereotypes die hard. Only recently has the buying public even begun to give Hyundai a second look.
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