The Hyundai story is the amazing tear-jerking rags to riches story of founder Chung Ju-Yung who against great odds just refused to give up. Ju-Yung was the eldest son born to a very poor Korean family in 1915. He started working when he was very young to provide for his siblings and parents.
Hyundai History
He later fled his village to establish a rice shop on Seoul. It was successful but was soon shut down by the Japanese who occupied Korea during the Second World War and refused to allow a Korean to deal in such a precious necessity food product.
Ju-Young was forced to take employment as a truck driver but was soon back in business for himself as the owner of his own delivery service company. One of the things he had to do was to quickly learn how to repair and maintain his delivery trucks.
This led him to establishing a garage and repair shop for cars. He called in Hyundai Auto Service. This was in 1940. But the real break for Ju-Yung as a car manufacturer came in 1968 when he won a contract to produce the Ford Cortina and Ford Granada for the Korean market.
His success producing Ford cars in Korea until 1976 gave the government confidence in backing him to produce a Korean car. This is what led to the birth of Hyundai as a world renowned car manufacturer.
The first Hyundai cars like the Hyundai Pony were very basic and based on old engines but this did not stop them from being extremely hot sellers all over the world. The company has come a long way and today Hyundai vehicles in Australia are stylish and well-built as well as offer high levels safety equipment as standard.
