Hyundai America Starts Off Drive to Retool U.S. Image With New Scoupe Engine

Hyundai Motor America Inc. once set U.S. sales records with its low-priced Excel. Now, trying to overcome its image as a second-class car company, the Korean auto maker has introduced its first internally designed engine and says it will bring out at least one new product a year through 1999.

The new engine, unveiled Wednesday, is a 1.5-liter, 12-valve design that comes in a regular 92-horsepower configuration or a 115-horsepower turbocharged version. To be produced for the 1993 Hyundai Scoupe, it was designed by Hyundai engineers in Korea and has been in use there for 18 months.

In the past, all Hyundais have been powered by engines designed by Mitsubishi Motors, the company’s Japanese technology partner.

D.O. Chung, president of the auto company’s U.S. operation in Fountain Valley, said Wednesday that the introduction of the new “Alpha” engine and a larger, 1.8-liter Mitsubishi-designed engine for the Hyundai Elantra mark the start of the company’s 1993 model year in the United States.

Company officials would not elaborate on new product plans except to say that the existing Sonata model will be completely redesigned for 1994, that the Excel is slated for a complete redesign in 1995 and that design studies are underway for a convertible and for refinement of the two-seat HCD-1 roadster, a concept car designed at Hyundai’s U.S. styling studio here.

Chung said Hyundai expects to sell about 125,000 cars in the United States for the 1993 model year, up from about 120,000 projected for in 1992 but well below the record 263,000 units sold in 1987.

Evaluating the company’s U.S. sales outlook, product development chief Russ Reeder acknowledged that the original Excels were beset with problems. Customers “have been burned by our domestic history,” he said.

To address consumers’ concerns and show that the engine performs well, Hyundai entered a turbo-powered Scoupe in the Pikes Peak hill climb in Colorado on July 4. The car set a record in the high-performance stock, two-wheel-drive class. Reeder said company officials now think the new engine will go a long way toward improving Hyundai’s image in the United States.