Maybe Fiat's might actually work property if the Germans take them over haha. They've given Lamborghini a dose of common sense and something resembling reliability.

Saab is another part of the GM Group which is struggling. In their native America alot of Americans are heading towards Japanese cars and have been for some time.

"Realistic Korean pricing"They should be half there present price if you consider their wage bill and they have about as much technology as something produced in the states around the sixties.

They're paying the same wages as anyone else in eastern european countires, their factories perhaps have slightly more automation due to being the most modern. A car doesn't cost anywhere near what folk think to manufacture, the cost is in the design, production line design/manufacture, shipping, marketing and VAT. As far as I'm aware the Korean's use the same ad agencies, news papers to advertise in and British workers in the movement of their cars, as every other manufactuer.

As for the technology, the South Koreans are the leading country in the world today. Several of the largest electronics companies, well ahead in internet infrastructure and mobile technology. They had USB interfaces as standard in cars before any European manufactuer did, aircon as standard on smaller cars, better fuel economy than european manufacturers. Hyundai together with Kia is already the largest asian car company in europe, having just overtaken Toyota. When the new small european designed cars come out the only thing thats stopping them is production capacity.

Hyundai Kia, the major Korean automotive company, has Design, Research and Development done in Germany and USA so they have no cost reduction there!

An interesting statistic is that Hyundai Kia is the world's 4th largest car maker after Toyota, GM and VAG but ahead of Ford - although they do drop back to5th when trucks are added to the numbers.

"Never driven a proper car" - you don't count the Subaru Outback as a proper car - the 2010-on Santa Fe can match it for handling on- or off-road.

The Kia Opirus was a US-market car - I agree they don't have any taste over there!

I haven't driven the i40 yet, that's when we all see how close, or far away, they are.

If they have so much technology at hand why do they produce such terrible cars just look at their mid size range (mondeo size) or look at their large cars the Opirius for one what dated rubbish they are.I will admit they have a good advertising model something most people who buy will regret in the future.Defenders of these cars have obviously never driven a proper car in their lives.

You're not comparing like with like, the Hyundai Sonata is a standard car designed to compete with the likes of the Camry or US Accord (different to our own), which is does very well. In europe the only mid size cars we have are premium, thats why Ford had to up the quality of the mondeo does fit into thats class. Toyota stopped selling the Camry some years ago, Hyundai have recently stopped selling the Sonata. The new i40 will be for the premium class and more expensive than the out going models due to that.