Teenagers practice their hip hop dance moves over a railway, with their CD player playing the tune of Korean legendary dance group Deux in the year of 1993. One poses a question to his dancing friend: what he wants to do when he succeeds. His friend points to a car passing by – a boxy Grandeur. “I’m gonna buy one of those.”

“The New Grandeur” facelifted with a youthful look has sought out to appeal to the young as well as those in 40s bearing nostalgic sentiment towards the legacy of Korea’s first luxury car name.

Grandeur in 1990s symbolized Korea at its heyday of rags-to-riches transformation when the country emerged fully from poverty after successfully pulling off two international sports games 1986 Asian Olympics and 1988 Seoul Olympics. The car was driven by any business owners as it was most luxury home-made car from Hyundai Motor.

Although one of the longest surviving brands under Hyundai marquee, the CEO sedan lost much of its loftiness and also reputation over the years as Koreans opt for foreign names or sportier SUVs.

Hyundai Motor’s design campaign dubbed ‘Sensuous Sportiness’ went onto transform The New Grandeur. The carmaker’s new design direction was unveiled at the 2018 Geneva International Motor Show when it showcased its Le Fil Rouge concept car, which was aimed at “creating vehicles with heightened emotional value to reshape the landscape of car design,” according to Lee Sang-yup, head of Hyundai Motor’s design team. The philosophy was first applied to its all-new Sonata sedan launched in March this year.

The New Grandeur’s front is decorated with a pattern called ‘parametric jewel’ to give fancy touch and seamlessly integrated with head lamps. Its body is 60 millimeters longer than its predecessor to 4,990 mm to have one of the most spacious interiors in its class. It has 12.3-inch cluster and the same-sized navigation put next to each other seamlessly. It adopts thinner and longer air vents and 64-color ambient mood light for a premium ambience.

The conglomerate now under management by the younger heir-apparent Executive Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun has focused on innovation and design.

Other flagships, such as Kia Motors’ K7 Premier, the same-class sedan of Hyundai’s Grandeur, also underwent extensive changes including a next-generation engine and cutting-edge technology to make it feel like an entirely new car. The facelifted K7 drew more pre-orders than the original version for the first eight days at 8,023 units in July.

Chung has brought in world-renowned car designers. He flew to Germany to hire Peter Schreyer, the world’s top three vehicle designer along with Christopher Edward Bangle and Ian Callum, to put him in charge of Kia design. Since then, Luc Donckerwolke and Lee Sang-yup who are former design directors at Volkswagen Group’s Bentley and Simon Loasby also from Volkswagen Group also joined the group. Hyundai recently recruited Filippo Perini, the former head designer at Lamborghini, as its chief designer at the Genesis Advanced Design Studio in Europe.

The young look on Grandeur paid off. First-day pre-order on Nov. 5 reached 17,294 units, a record for any facelifted model in Korea.

By Pulse

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]