Хёндай Пони: Корей автокөлігінің тарихы

the rear wheel drive Hyundai Pony (1975 1985)

The Hyundai Pony (Hangul: 현대 포니), is a small automobile produced by the South Korean manufacturer Hyundai from 1975 until 1990. The Pony was South Korea's first mass produced and exported car. It has a front engine, rear wheel drive layout and variants were made with two door coupé utility, three door liftback, four door saloon car, and five door liftback or estate car body styles. The Pony nameplate remained in use until 2000 on some export versions of the Hyundai Excel and Accent.

Hyundai had already ventured into car production by producing locally built versions of the Ford Cortina under licence from 1968. When the company wanted to develop their own car, they hired George Turnbull, the former managing director of Austin and Morris at British Leyland in 1974. He in turn hired five other top British car engineers, Kenneth Barnett as body designer, engineers John Simpson and Edward Chapman, John Crosthwaite as chassis engineer and Peter Slater as chief development engineer. With Turnbull's experience with the Morris Marina, engines and transmissions from Mitsubishi, some parts from the Ford Cortina they were already producing, and a hatchback body styled by Italdesign Giugiaro, they developed the Hyundai Pony.

The Pony Coupe Concept was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign and first shown at the 1974 Turin Motor Show. According to Italdesign, the styling exercise was not performed under commission from Hyundai, but that company's executives asked to brand the concept as a Hyundai just before the opening of the Turin show. The styling of the Pony Coupe Concept went on to inspire both the DMC DeLorean (1981) and Hyundai N Vision 74 concept (2022). The N Vision 74 is equipped with dual electric traction motors (both fitted to the rear axle) with a combined output of and of torque, drawing from a 62.4 kW hr battery pack and hydrogen tanks storing for an on board fuel cell.

In Europe, the front wheel drive Hyundai Excel was sold under the Pony name from 1985 as a replacement for the rear wheel drive version. In other markets, the second generation Pony continued on sale alongside the new Hyundai Excel. Until discontinuation, Excel carried the Pony name. The first generation Excel (X1) was called Pony in Europe from 1985 to 1987, and the face lifted model from 1987–1989 was called the Pony XP. For the second generation Excel (X2), the hatchback versions were called Pony in Europe. The final usage of the name was with the first generation Hyundai Accent, sold as the Pony in France. The Pony name was last used by Hyundai in 2000.

For the second and third generations, some taxi models of the Hyundai Accent were sold as "Hyundai Super Pony". The fourth generation used the name "Grand Pony" instead.

In April 2021, Hyundai displayed the Pony Heritage EV, a restored first generation Pony converted with an electric vehicle powertrain as a concept, in Hyundai Motorstudio Busan. The powertrain specifications were not available; the interior featured an instrument panel with two three digit nixie tube displays for state of charge and vehicle speed. The head and tail lights feature a pixellated design which Hyundai have called "Pixel Road Trip" or "Parametric Pixel", reminiscent of 8 bit graphics and matching the design language applied to vehicles under its Ioniq sub brand, including the contemporary Ioniq 5 production and 45 EV concept vehicles.