The Chinese and other emerging car brands aren't building award-winning cars, yet

When I was in South Korea recently, I asked a leading Hyundai-Kia exec a simple question: “Why, not so long ago, were some of your models flawed, naff and unwanted, yet – wearing the same nameplates today – they’ve somehow become good/great, respected and desirable?”

Quick as a flash he confessed that with far less experience than legacy manufacturers, his company often needs three or four goes before it gets its models as good as it hopes and expects them to be. 

Exhibit one: Hyundai’s Santa Fe was born in 2000 as a nothingy SUV. Wind forward a quarter of a century and it’s a huge (almost 5m long), Land-Roveresque, borderline premium, seven-seat hybrid that can be bought today for less than half the price of the cheapest Range Rover diesel. 

An even better example is the Mk1 Kia Sportage I was unfortunate enough to have the displeasure of driving and breaking down in during its early-nineties launch period. But in the decades that followed, Kia learned how to design and manufacture it correctly – resulting in it deservedly taking over as one of the UK’s best-sellers.

The Nissan Leaf has been on a similarly impressive journey. I first drove it in 2010 and was critical from the start. But my criticisms had nothing to do with it being the first mass-manufactured pure-electric car for an understandably wary buying public. Instead, my complaints had everything to do with its high price, ugly exterior and the fact that after a full recharge taking several hours, it was dogged with a hopeless, 85-mile real-world range. The Mk2 version in 2017 was a vast improvement. And now, in the mid-2020s, the Japanese company, aided and abetted by its Sunderland factory, has learned the art of designing and building a credible, desirable, world-class EV. That’s why it has, with some justification, just been crowned Auto Express Car of the Year.

What’s clear is that Hyundai-Kia needed two or three decades to get things right. Nissan required a decade and a half to make a Leaf which is so spot-on that it’s taken the top prize when there has never been so many rival firms producing cars. 

Mazda MX-5’s was born 37 years ago but still, in its latest guise, is AE’s Convertible of the Year. For more than 50 years, Volkswagen has been perfecting the art of producing Golfs – culminating in its latest GTI winning our Hot Hatch category. Porsche’s 911 does even better, winning in the Performance Car class – during the year of its 62nd birthday.

The moral of the story is this: as long as middle and old-age models are regularly and appropriately updated by their manufacturers over the generations, they can and will continue to be world-beaters. 

All those new kids on the block from ‘emerging’ and other hopeful car-producing countries – you’ve been warned.

Get the latest and best car news and reviews, first! Follow Auto Express on Google today