Hyundai Australia turns 40 this month. It started with one dealership in Perth in August 1986 that sold eight cars in its first month, and the count now stands at 2.2 million.
There was no Hyundai Australia in those days. The distribution rights were picked up by Perth dealer John Hughes alongside the late Alan Bond. Hughes is 90 now and still at it. “I can remember that we only sold a total of eight cars in our very first month back in 1986, however by the end of the year a respectable 1,756 Hyundai cars had been sold,” he said. From the late 1990s his was the biggest selling Hyundai dealership in the world for six years running.
The $13,990 Excel Did More Than Sell Cars
The Hyundai Excel was very cheap, plain and everywhere, and 250,000 of them went out the door here. The lasting part was not the car though, it was the advertising. That famous $13,990 drive-away campaign helped make nationally advertised drive-away pricing normal, so a buyer could read a number in the paper and know what the car would cost on the road. Every brand does it now. That is common now, but in 1990 it was close to heresy.
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ABOVE: The Hyundai Excel and IONIQ 5
The i30 Turned Hyundai Into a Default
The i30 went on sale in 2007 and became the car people bought without thinking about it. More than 450,000 have been sold locally, which makes it the brand’s best seller here, and between 2015 and 2017 it was Australia’s outright best-selling vehicle seven times. Its best month was June 2016, when 6,432 were sold and it topped the market for a fourth month running. That was the point where Hyundai stopped winning on price alone and started winning because the car was good.
The pace tells the same story. Hyundai took 26 years to sell its first million cars in Australia, banking the milestone in 2012, and only 11 more to reach two million in 2023. The record year is still 2014, when 100,011 cars went out, and nothing since has beaten it. Hyundai Australia has sold roughly 200,000 cars in the three years since the second million, which is solid business and nowhere near the run rate of the middle years.
The Warranty Was the Other Weapon
In 1999 Hyundai became the first mainstream brand here to offer a five-year warranty, and in 2007 it took the kilometre cap off altogether. Everyone else had to follow, which is why a three-year warranty now reads as mean rather than normal. The cover today is seven years and unlimited kilometres provided the car is serviced in the dealer network. The other quiet shift was engineering. Local suspension and steering tuning started with the i30 in 2008 and grew into full dynamic calibration by 2010, and Australian input now feeds back into the global programs.
Hyundai Australia Is Getting Its Own Medicine
The last decade has been spent at the expensive end of the business. There is the N performance brand, hydrogen with the ix35 Fuel Cell and then NEXO, and an IONIQ range that in 2018 was the first nameplate here to offer hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric versions of the same car. IONIQ 5 took World Car of the Year in 2022 along with the electric and design categories, and IONIQ 5 N was named 2024 World Performance Car and won Hyundai its first Wheels Car of the Year. Don Romano, who has run Hyundai Australia since 2025, said the anniversary was about the “millions of Australians who gave Hyundai a chance”.
Which brings the story back to where it started. The ground Hyundai stood on in 1986, a decent car for less money than anyone else was asking, now belongs to the Chinese brands, and Hyundai Australia has spent this year cutting electric car prices to answer them. The names scrapping with Toyota at the top of the sales charts are BYD and Tesla. The neatest illustration is on the 2026 line of the milestone list below. The ELEXIO is the first Hyundai sold here that was exported from China. Forty years is long enough to be the cheap upstart and then the establishment, and Hyundai has been both.
Hyundai Australia Milestones
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1986 | Hyundai introduced to Australia by the Bond Group, WA |
| 1999 | Five-year/130,000km warranty launched |
| 2003 | Hyundai Motor Company Australia (HMCA) established as a wholly owned subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) |
| 2004 | Hyundai sells 500,000th new car in Australia |
| 2004 | First compact SUV launched (Tucson/ix35) |
| 2005 | Hyundai A-League launched |
| 2007 | Five-year unlimited kilometre warranty launched |
| 2007 | Hyundai begins partnership with Carlton Football Club |
| 2007 | i30 launched in Australia |
| 2007 | i30 awarded the coveted 2007 CarsGuide (News Corp) Car of the Year |
| 2008 | HMCA establishes new head office in Macquarie Park, Sydney |
| 2008 | i30 first Korean vehicle to achieve ANCAP five-star safety rating |
| 2008 | HMCA adapts suspension and steering settings for i30 |
| 2009 | Hyundai announces partnership with Brisbane Lions |
| 2010 | Canstar Blue recognises Hyundai for ‘Most Satisfied Customers’ |
| 2010 | HMCA extends local tuning to include dynamic calibration |
| 2011 | HMCA achieves record annual sales of 87,008 vehicles |
| 2012 | Hyundai sells 1,000,000th new car in Australia |
| 2014 | HMCA achieves record annual sales of 100,011 vehicles |
| 2015 | HMCA imports the country’s first hydrogen-powered car, the ix35 Fuel Cell |
| 2015 | HMCA opens Australia’s only hydrogen vehicle refuelling station at its Macquarie Park head office |
| 2017 | HMCA wins JD Power Australia top brand for customer sales satisfaction |
| 2017 | Hyundai launches KONA in Australia, the brand’s first small SUV |
| 2017 | i30 SR is awarded the coveted 2017 Drive Car of the Year |
| 2017 | Hyundai i20 N WRC wins Rally Australia |
| 2018 | Hyundai launches i30 N, its first N car, in Australia |
| 2018 | Hyundai launches the Ioniq range, the first nameplate in Australia to offer hybrid, plug-in hybrid and all-electric powertrains |
| 2018 | i30 N is awarded the coveted 2018 News Corp Car of the Year |
| 2019 | Hyundai launched N Australia customer engagement program |
| 2019 | Hyundai launched KONA Electric in Australia |
| 2019 | KONA Electric wins Good Design Awards, Automotive and Transport Product category |
| 2019 | KONA Electric is the first electric vehicle to be crash tested in Australia |
| 2019 | Inaugural Hyundai N Festival is held at Wakefield Park Raceway |
| 2019 | i30 N TCR wins inaugural TCR Australia Drivers’ Championship |
| 2020 | Hyundai launched Palisade in Australia |
| 2021 | NEXO Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle launches, becoming the first hydrogen-powered vehicle certified for sale in Australia |
| 2021 | Australian Hyundai NEXO breaks the world record for the longest distance travelled by a hydrogen-powered vehicle on a single tank |
| 2021 | IONIQ 5 and the IONIQ brand launch in Australia |
| 2021 | IONIQ 5 awarded the prestigious 2021 Carsales Car of the Year |
| 2021 | IONIQ 5 awarded the coveted 2021 News Corp Car of the Year |
| 2021 | Hyundai Help for Kids reaches $10 million fundraising milestone |
| 2022 | HMCA introduces Hyundai Bluelink connected car services |
| 2022 | IONIQ 5 wins the World Car Awards ‘triple crown’: World Car of the Year, World Electric Vehicle and World Car Design of the Year |
| 2023 | IONIQ 6 launches in Australia |
| 2023 | MIGHTY Electric Truck launched in Australia |
| 2023 | Hyundai Promise Certified Pre-Owned Program launches in Australia |
| 2023 | i30 Sedan N TCR wins TCR Australia Drivers’ Championship |
| 2023 | Hyundai sells 2,000,000th new car in Australia |
| 2024 | IONIQ 5 N launched in Australia, the brand’s first high-performance EV |
| 2024 | i30 Sedan N TCR wins second consecutive TCR Australia Drivers’ Championship |
| 2024 | IONIQ 5 N becomes Hyundai’s first Wheels Car of the Year winner |
| 2025 | INSTER launched in Australia |
| 2025 | Hyundai N Rapid EV Charging Station officially opened at Sydney Motorsport Park |
| 2025 | IONIQ 9 launched in Australia, flagship electric vehicle |
| 2025 | 7-year unlimited kilometre warranty launched |
| 2026 | ELEXIO launched in Australia, becoming the first Hyundai vehicle exported from China |
| 2026 | N Australia dedicated events and community website launched |
| 2024 | IONIQ 6 N launched in Australia |
| 2026 | Hyundai celebrates 40 years in Australia and surpasses 2.2 million vehicles sold |
Hyundai Australia Chief Executives
| Years | Chief executive |
|---|---|
| 2003 to 2005 | BG Lee |
| 2006 to 2008 | Steve Yeo |
| 2009 to 2012 | Edward Lee |
| 2013 to 2016 | Charlie Kim |
| 2017 to 2019 | JW Lee |
| 2020 to 2021 | Jun Heo |
| 2022 to 2024 | Ted Lee |
| 2025 to present | Don Romano |
More Hyundai Stories
- Hyundai Red Dot Wins Are More Than Trophy Cabinet Bling
- Toyota BYD Tesla Fight For Australia’s Sales Crown
- Hyundai Staria adds Hybrid, Lounge Flagship, and an EV Future
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Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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