Part 2: The conceivement of the project and Hyundai's India entry
While delicensing marked the entry of many overseas auto manufacturers, most of them were into joint ventures with Indian companies and that too in 3-box luxury segment (Esteem, Cielo, Astra, Escort, City, and lancer later), not looking for volumes because an average Indian customer did not have enough purchasing power parity to buy one. Maruti's 800 and zen were plain common sights and were the cars that the public actually bought, thanks to their affordable prices and decent performance, and mileage. But these cars were compromised from our perspective, with respect to interior space, comfort and body durability, each made of tissue thin sheet metal.
The other car, the solidly built uno, fizzled after all that initial hoopla due to PAL's disastrous management and the upcoming Indica was still under development. But somewhere in south Korea, management from Hyundai motor company were celebrating their 30th anniversary (just assuming
) of foundation and Mr. Kim decided to take an opportunity in the Indian market, harness its potential growth prospects and then they drafted a business plan.
But to succeed n what is to potentially become one of the most competitive markets in Asia, they needed a product, and a mass one at that. That time was about August 1996. And Hyundai did not have even a single model at its portfolio. Its first kei-car, the tall quirky looking Atoz, was planned for a fall 1996 launch at its home turf, and Daewoo, its arch rival, was selling a car based on Suzuki alto called the TICO. Simultaneously, it was also working on the successor to the tico to rival the atoz. More about that later...
A survey was conducted in India as in what do we expect from our next small car, and if this/ that features were provided will it provide a fresher and better alternative to the then best seller, the zen?
Indians showed a preference to extra space, comfort, features, modern technology, but loved one thing-curvy design and not boxy (which was another reason for uno's failure), especially after getting used to the curvy "jelly-bean" design of the old zen.
Meanwhile the discussions were heating up within Hyundai's top brass and when the Atos was launched, it was immediately ruled out for our country as it was perceived too boxy and flat at the rear, something we Indians hated.
So, designers went back to the drawing board and created the car that is unique to our country, with completely new front and rear ends and improved interiors, a design that resembled a modern hatchback at that time. Also, the domestic market car was powered by a newly developed 796 cc 3 cylinder epsilon engine with 48 ps, but for India, and especially to counter the zen from all angles, the power-train's bore and displacement was increased from 796 cc to 999 cc, and another cylinder was bolted on to make it a 4 cylinder power plant.
It was also equipped with 2 intake and 1 exhaust valve, making it a multi valve design, aimed to improve breathing and judging our poor quality fuel, compression ratio as optimized.
In about 1,00,000 kms of testing about 30 odd prototypes under real Indian driving conditions, the engine was caliberated with MPFI and power was optimised at 55 bhp, 5 bhp more than zen's 993 cc carb engine's 50 bhp.
The car also had to sport a unique-for-India name, and thus, the
Hyundai Santro was born.
As the testing continued, the company marked an ambitious project of building massive plant with an initial capacity of 2,50,000 cars per annum, expandable to 3,00,000 based upon demand. Tamil Nadu's Sriperambedur was chosen as prime location due to favorable location, government incentives and tax savings promised by TN government. A huge greenfield site was also built and construction of Hyundai's biggest plant outside Ulsan, South Korea (which is currently world's largest integrated automobile manufacturing facility as of today), started with a ground breaking ceremony at September 1996 and was completed in a record 16 months time, in about February 1998, with pilot production planned for June and commercial launch planned for October in that year.
Meanwhile, timing for auto expo 1998 was close and Hyundai was preparing 3 show cars to be showcased at the expo, a red, another blue and a leaf green model. All 3 were loaded to the gills including roof rails, chrome grill, waistline and bumper mouldings and made them to look as flashy as possible, all traits of Korean designs of that time. The red car was meanwhile photographed in a studio and published at auto India's December 1998 issue along with the Indica, also scheduled to make debut at the same expo.
Meanwhile, coming back to Hyundai's hometown rival Daewoo, the TICO's successor was nothing but the matiz, a completely new design from grounds up, which in turn was actually based on a rejected Fiat design sketch that was done by Guigiaro (ital design) for one of its small cars way back in 1995. While Fiat hated it, Daewoo liked it and finalised it for its lineup, though the TICO's M-TEC engine was heavily reworked with new cylinder block, heads and MPFI technology to power the Matiz (conceptually previewed by D'ARTS earlier).
It was planned to be showcased at the auto expo as well and carried a 3 cylinder, 6 valve 796 cc MPFI powertrain with 52 bhp and 730 Nm torque. Contrary to Hyundai's policy of different powertrains for domestic and export markets, the matiz was retained with just one powertrain option for all global markets, including in India.
While the matiz launches in April 1998 in Korea to rival the atoz, it was the auto expo which was to begin what is actually termed as "Korean rivalry" in the months to come while the respective products hit the Indian launch timings.
Now what happened there? Find out next in Part 3, coming up.
(the car photographed is the original atoz in Brussels by me. Notice the different flat and boxy rear design, the main reason its direct launch was rejected for India. The car shown here is a 1999 face lifted model with a different grill.)