Vellum Venom Vignette: When Hyundai sliced itself a wedge of Pony history

Being true to one’s self is something all of us should keep in mind, especially in this era of social media influencing and Silicon Valley overselling. When an automaker lives out this axiom, you can tell: Think of Ford’s proud parent vibes for the Model T, VW’s very public “Ode to the Bug,” or Porsche’s endless love for the vehicle that put (kept?) it on the map.

Hyundai’s interaction with its past is a little different. While the company has a rich history, we Americans didn’t even get a taste until the months leading up to South Korea’s successful fight for democracy—a fight that included rank-and-file Hyundai employees seeking a more perfect union. I hope it’s not disingenuous to suggest that the history of the Hyundai Motor Company is intertwined with that of South Korea itself. No matter, history is worth saving, and Hyundai has many stories to tell.

One is Hyundai’s honest assessment of its limitations, as it partnered with Italy’s own Giorgetto Giugiaro. The collaboration put Hyundai on the map. Unlike Japan’s relative indifference to design in the ’60s and ’70s, the uniquely logical, minimalist modes of transportation Hyundai made for developing nations are downright revolutionary. 

Maybe even explosive in its influence, as this commercial suggests:

Enter the 1975 Hyundai Pony, with a rather authoritarian-sounding advertisement. Lest my blatant ignorance of the Korean language/culture become too obvious, let’s motor on: The Pony wasn’t a single car. Rather, like Henry Ford’s beloved Tin Lizzy, one nameplate represented a family of body styles. Variants of Pony included a three-door hatchback, a sedan, a station wagon, and even an El Camino–style truck.

The Pony may not be beautiful to your eyes, but it put a lot of people on the road. And it possessed a logical and well-organized design worthy of a Giugiaro product. This level of insight is even more impressive considering Hyundai’s top brass (and the Italian design house, by extension) had to work within the confines of a authoritarian regime, however benevolent and growth-focused.

But what if you let Giugiaro run wild with a Pony donor car, so he can design a flagship sporting coupe with all the latest styling trends (of the mid 1970s)? Hyundai did exactly that, resulting in the low-slung, wedge-shaped, proto-DeLorean Pony Coupe of 1974. The concept car made its debut at the Turin Motor Show that same year, but was mothballed due to, in Hyundai’s words, “adverse global economic conditions.”

Now “lost to history,” it was presumably stored in a location not worthy of its future relevance to the corporation. Shame.

Luckily, modern Hyundai has a rather keen love affair with history. It has restomodded two “Heritage” vehicles, one a Pony hatchback and the other a flagship Grandeur sedan. Each creation proves a multi-national corporation can have the heart of a museum curator. Cars are art, and they deserve to be revered like any form of creative expression. It was only a matter of time before the 1974 Pony Coupe joined these two masterpieces in a museum dedicated to Hyundai’s triumphs.

We heard that Hyundai would join forces with Giugiaro to rebuild the 1974 coupe last year, and the result looks like a dream come true. Hyundai unveiled the Pony Coupe concept at 2023’s Hyundai Reunion, roughly 50 years after the original concept made its debut at the aforementioned Turin Motor Show.

Embracing your design history is one thing, but I’m not delusional enough to believe Hyundai recreated the 1974 Pony Coupe to delight design geeks and in-house archivists. It’s also a branding exercise, similar to Mazda’s restoration of the MX-81 concept by Bertone. Hyundai, however, has opened its wallets even wider than Mazda did to build something from a donor Pony and not a mothballed auto show relic.

Clearly, all this money is gonna be used to dovetail into something else.

The logical next step is to introduce a new coupe with that 1974 template in mind. Hyundai already made the Ioniq 5 as a rolling tribute to the Pony, but if something like the N Vision 74 concept sports car comes to fruition, souls will be set ablaze. Pair a production version of the 74 with Hyundai’s N performance badge, and Hyundai could rekindle the same sort of flame Ford did in 2005. Hyundai’s retro-performance car wouldn’t resonate in America to the same degree as the Ford GT—but in other countries, ones with less established automotive heritage than America? Not every nation was exposed to muscle cars, fuselage bodies, tailfins, and decadent proportioning 50 or 60 years ago.

Hyundai’s reverence for the past has already worked, in my opinion; I can’t stop drawing parallels between the company’s modern EV design language and that of modern architecture.

Hyundai should be proud of its design fortitude, which has been evident since Day One. Good design isn’t cheap and is rarely appreciated across an organization. Hyundai has been true to itself, as this reincarnated 1974 Pony Coupe further proves. The car hews as close to its maker’s legacy as a Ford truck, a Porsche 911, a VW Beetle, or a Hemi-powered Chrysler. We should thank our lucky stars that Hyundai never forgot where it came from, because it will take us somewhere truly special.

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