SPORTS KOREA

Few sports cars have less pedigree than the Hyundai Coupé. The South Korean company’s automotive division had been churning out undistinguished-yet-competent automobiles since its 1967 birth, starting with a licenced version of Ford’s Mk2 Cortina. Its entry into the UK market in 1982 was a four-door, rear-wheel drive hatchback conceived by a former managing director of Austin Morris. The Pony managed to be quite remarkably unexceptional, despite styling that sprang from the pen of Giorgetto Giugiaro.

Six years later Hyundai produced a car that, in name at least, had sporting ambitions. The S Coupé was based on the current Pony, which by then had become a front-wheel drive vehicle with origami bodywork and a distinctly utilitarian air. A low-slung,