We haven’t built a loyal readership without knowing a thing or two about what makes you lot tick. Rusty old Ford Rangers rank pretty high on the list. Phil’s adventures at his local junkyard, too. And, oh yeah – big square sedans from the 1980s.
This is why we’re finally publishing pictures of this Hyundai concept, even though it dropped earlier this week and parroted by every cab blog from Anchorage to Zephyrhills. If anyone can appreciate what Hyundai has done with this one-off EV, it’s the Best & Brightest.
This is also something of an interesting break for Hyundai since Korean companies aren’t generally into gazing at their past efforts or rooting around the corporate closet for a dose of retro-cool. Still, they did just that earlier this year, with an all-electric take on their original Pony; now, they’ve turned the same trick on a Grandeur sedan as part of its 35th anniversary celebrations.
Look at the thing! Its exterior manages to blend old-school body lines with dandy new LED lighting signatures as if someone time-warped back to the ‘80s and dropped off this technology at the design studio doorstep. Spelling out one’s company name in billboard letters has become something of a popular retro throwback (witness the use of this styling technique at Toyota and Ford) but it just seems right on this Grandeur – especially on the trunk lid and full wheel covers (which are actually reported to be one-piece alloys). After all hands rushed to ditch their consonants and vowels in a bid to create a tidy fit-it-on-the-steering-wheel logo in the ‘90s (Mazda, Toyota, Hyundai, et al), it seems the trend is finally starting to reverse.
The cabin of this one-off Grandeur is a mesmerizing mix of old and new, with cues such as velvet and piano stripe styling playing right next to modern infotainment screens and displays. The original analog cluster has been predictably binned in favor of a jumbotron that surely shares much with what’s found in the upcoming Ioniq 5 EV hatchback. A neat trick is the concealment of a few audio speakers in the dashboard bluff, part of the 18-speaker system on board. And that in-roof lighting treatment over the rear seat is simply tremendous.
No, they’re not building this car – though there’s a case to be made that it could be something of a testing and display bed for tech and style that might come down the Hyundai pipe at some point in the future. After all, the dot-matrix lighting which appeared on the one-off Pony EV has since morphed into what will be produced on the rump of the Ioniq 5; your author has seen that machine in person and can confirm its pert rear looks just as good in real life as it does on a digital screen.
See? Told ya we know what you like.
[Images: Hyundai]
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Reminds me of the ’87 K-Car Chrysler New Yorker Including the Turkish brothel upholstery.
OMG the love child of a Dodge Dynasty and a Toyota Century!
I said this exact thing in our Slack chat.
Great minds Corey, great minds.
Looks like an Eagle Premier with an extra dollop of brougham to me!
It’s a cross between a K car and an Eagle Premier.
Electric cars don’t have to be blobs. Any good-looking older car can be produced again as an electric.
The angles agree with my old, long-gone 1987 Nissan Stanza.
But this isn’t a diesel, brown, stick shift wagon. It might be tailor made for some of us, but not all!
Honestly pretty cool retromod. Too bad it’s of a car that, back in the day, was to a Toyota Century as the Shuanghuan SCEO was to the the E53 X5.
I think it’s funny they chose to restomod this particular car from their history, as it’s not really -their- car. Though it was built in South Korea, it’s a badge job of the second-gen Mitsubishi Debonair, a car which Rare Rides has covered extensively in AMG format.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2021/04/rare-rides-the-sporty-and-very-rare-1991-mitsubishi-debonair-by-amg-part-iii/
And yes, the Grandeur’s top trim V6 was the exact same one your parents had in their Dynasty.
Dynasty was not my parents’ car; I’m just a bit too old. It was the crap fleet car that I could occasionally borrow from the catering department in my amazing college job leading a room-cleaning crew.
I remember Dynasty well, unfortunately.
Mom and dad had a Dynasty and it was actually a pretty good car. The only issue they ever had was the local gas station had water get in their tanks.
Friends and I took it from SW WI to Dayton Ohio at a good clip and averaged 34mpg in comfort. (We averaged 65mph including gas and lunch stops)
The biggest issue was the Mitsubishi V6, and the air conditioning which my dad suspected was also supplied by Mitsubishi.
Though I’m sure Mitsubishi would be happy to forget about the existence of this car, it is funny that Hyundai is taking this as part of *their* history.
I always did wonder if Mitsubishi was hoping to OEM this car (and not just the engine) to Chrysler as well with this Debonair V.
A friend of mine had one which she called the “Dy-Nasty.” Truer words and all that…!
I love chrome on cars. And velour seating. And interiors that are not black or grey or tan but actually match the colour of the seating.
However as just about everyone else has noted, this looks like a stretched K-Car.
What I am waiting for is when hybrids or electrics become cheap, and common enough that they can be used to power heritage vehicles that look like domestic vehicles/sedans/PLCs from the late 1950’s or the height of the
‘Brougham Era’.
How bout a restomod EV 1987 Fifth Avenue?
Complete with Voice Alert system!
“Your range. Is. Zero. Miles!”
Driver: “No! It’s an oven!”
(::Car loses power and rolls to a stop!::)
Driver: “$&#%!”
Or if the car was saying that you now have UNDER zero miles, as in “SubZero!”
Driver (if they own a kitchen-ful of “status” appliances): “That’s my refrigerator!”
Hell, it was like my Grandmother and I said in perfect unison when her cousin exited her 1987 New Yorker with aforementioned Voice Alert!
Car: “A door is ajar.”
Us: “No, it’s a door!”
@Corey: Yuck, just yuck. All of the bad with none of the good of the great brougham domestic luxury vehicles of the early/mid 1970’s. The auto equivalent of a bad cover band.
Lee Iacocca would be proud!
If you can find a better retro Hyundai, buy it!
And we’ll pay you $50 for a test drive! Boy, those were the dark days indeed.
Don’t forget the first 7 year/70,000 mile warranty. I can still see those TV commercials with Iacocca talking about them while standing next to a Le Baron.
Groovy!
Love the interior, straight out of a 1970s Hyatt Regency smoke mirror and lighted acrylic hotel. Very nice place to sip a neat scotch and enjoy a Cuban cigar, but the outside is pure 1st gen Toyota Camry
Return of the K-car!
Looks like a Lebron, not the basketball player.
You can say Lebaron.
I scanned across an article about this car yesterday (I didn’t read it), and I assumed it was some concept from the ’80s. The one thing that I thought looked out of place was the display on the instrument panel. Now I know why!
The other weird thing (you can’t see it in these pictures) is the lacing on the front seatbacks, like giant athletic shoes. WTH?
I hate that girdle lacing. Very f-cky looking and neither retro nor future.
I really hope that horseshoe-style shifters come back into fashion. If we’re doomed to an EV future, at least make it satisfying to put it in drive. A nice affirmative “ka-thunk”, not some knob or row of buttons.
As someone who is TIRED of CROSSOVERS, I am happy to see a car. And not a car with bizarre edges and angles…like the Sonota. It’s also nice to see a greenhouse with a roof that is upright and roomy. Please brig back cars like this that have room for real people. Maybe they will finally come back, and dump crossovers. Maybe!
Needs gold trim and gold emblems
Not a Sixty Special. 3.2/10.
Lol
Just shut up and take my money!
Compared with that 1986 Ford Taurus looks like car from the Future.
On a further consideration it looks like 1980s Maserati knockoff.
A mockery of a parody of a sham.
“Mr. Montalbon, your EV is ready”
“Rich Coreeeeeeen-thian..Velour!!”
Yeah yeah yeah, it looks like a big K-car.
But it least it doesn’t look like some creased, folded, acute angled doodle of a samurai warrior helmet with a wheel stuck under each corner.
If I can’t get a resto-mod XJ6, or ’66 Bonneville ragtop, I’ll take this.
Saw this earlier this week and immediately fell in love.
What’s cool about EVs is that once people settle down about range anxiety car designs won’t all have to look like aerodynamically polished turds in order to squeeze out another mile per gallon for the window sticker.
Recently saw a Lucid Air. Turd. Volvo Polestar or whatever that turd is called. Model X? Giant swollen bowl stuffing turd.
Got to give Hyundai credit for doing something pretty cool and different. Hopefully the interior smells like Jovan musk. Very curious about Dodge’s retro themed electric products that are coming up.
I wonder if, once our “betters” manage to shove EVs down our throats, if they will then start mandating a minimum range or minimum “eMPG” or something like that!! Remember that a government program, according to some, is the closest thing to eternal life that we’ll ever see! The EPA is going to have to bi4ch about SOMETHING!
If that happens, right back to amorphous blobs we go! (If we’re not all in self-driving pods which never exceed 25mph because “the children!”)
Oh, I think there will be pressure to increase eMPG. You think CARB is going to just dissolve itself once EV adoption hits a certain point? No way. Someone has to oversee the eMPG fines program.
Yeah CARB won’t go away w/o a massive fight. Back in the early 70’s they wouldn’t listen to the head of the organization, known as Mr Smog since he did demonstrations where he produced it on demand. Meanwhile the EPA did listen to him. So when the EPA set lower levels of NOx than CARB had he declared that the need for CARB was over and it should go away. Those people wanted to keep their jobs so they quickly changed their tune and adjusted their standards to slightly stricter than the federal standards since their right to operate was tied to the “need” for more stringent rules in CA. So yeah since 1975 CARB’s #1 priority has been to keep themselves in business.
CARB = California Air Resources Board. They are the parent regulatory body for air emissions, which covers MORE THAN JUST CARS.
Today you learned.
Oh yes! Lawnmowers and motorcycles, apparently!
If China had CARB, then there would be a hell of a lot less pollution in this world.
Judging by all the responses…they have a “HIT” on their hands. Think of how many people that would be willing to switch to electric…Just to have a normal looking car once again.
Ford had a huge response to the electric F-100 resto-mod as SEMA. Manufacturers could build a basic skateboard, then through additive manufacturing, create all kinds of special vehicles. Replacement parts could be printed on demand. Maybe a worthwhile method of encouraging EV adoption, the government could pass vehicle standards and testing laws to facilitate vehicles like that. Additive manufacturing combined with EV technology could produce some interesting vehicles.
You do realize that Hyundai would have to sell this as a three year old used car to get anyone in the B&B to actually pay money for it?
If this were $60k and came with a modern EV range and decent dynamics I would write a check for it tomorrow.
It seems that the dawn of EVs is the most realistic opportunity to return to the Broughamtastic style of the late 60s and 70s.
Maybe even an electric Corvorado!
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/dunham-corvorado-the-most-outlandish-cars-ever-made/
Wow! So this is what we can look forward to in 1957?
You’re three decades off – this is the best of the 1980s. In 1957 GM was still charging extra for the radio and heater/defroster – and the radio had tubes!
Any car with a sensibly low beltline looks good by now.
I’m seeing some Ford Fairmont in there.
OK….April Fools, right?