To answer your threads title, its plain and simple. They produce good quality vehicles much lower in price than their competitors. They continue to bring forth ideas unheard of in the industry such as 10 year/100000 mile warranty, Price assurance etc that others have copied over.
As for the logo, anyone can see a difference in it and can tell if the vehicle is a Honda or a Hyundai. The Genesis logo and brand was supposed to be a separate brand much like Acura is Hondas, but it was decided not to make a separate brand at the last minute.
The Hyundai emblem/logo has changed over the years, but
As for Hyundai not being prestigious in the world, I tend to disagree. Hyundai has the world largest automobile manufacturing plant in the world. Hyundai is the second largest automaker in Asia after Toyota. Yes, even bigger than Honda. In fact over all as of 2007-8 the 10 biggest automakers in the world are as follows...
Toyota
General Motors
Volkswagen
Ford
Hyundai/Kia
Honda
Peugeot/Citroen
Nissan
Fiat
Renault
Honda started as a piston rings company back in 1937, then as a motorcycle company that started production of them in 1948.They did not start producing road cars until 1960 mainly for the Japanese market. The N600 was introduced to the US in 1969 as a 1970 model and was the first Honda automobile to be officially imported to the US.
Hyundai started later in 1947 and fully established in 1967.
Hyundai's' first model was the Cortina, released in cooperation with Ford in 1968.
Both have a long history. And both continue to make an impact. While its true that one cannot deny the problems Hyundai had in the past with the Excel in 1986, it learned from that joint venture and started to make their own engine parts and since then has either tied Honda in
reliability or
surpassed it.
Still, regardless of how many awards the company gets, be they be car of the year or customer satisfaction or reliability, there are those that will still see it as a bad company with a bad history. Nothing can change their view of the company.
I for one am glad I bought one back in 2002 and haven't regretted my decision.
TS out
TS