Korean Cars Refridgerators on Wheels
UPDATE: Go check out Jeff’s site for some more info and clips from this car show and judge for yourself if it is specifically anti-Korean or not.
____________________________________________________
Why do Koreans get so worked up about something like this? A British car show, Top Gear, that satires many automobiles poked some fun at Korean cars.
An industry official said that the program was relentlessly provocative, with presenters claiming that Korean cars were cheap because they were built with inferior materials and parts. At one point, viewers were recommended to opt for a two-year-old Volkswagen Golf instead of a new Korean model if they wanted to buy a cheap car.
The program hosts even brought a refrigerator on wheels into the studio, remarking that this was how cars were made in Korea.
On hearing the news, Korean carmakers such as Hyundai, whose “Getz” (Click) suffered concentrated derision at the hands of the program’s hosts, rapidly contacted their UK offices to confirm what was said and ascertain what the program’s intentions were.
In the case of Hyundai, Korea’s flagship carmaker, the firm was perplexed after it received a report on the matter from its UK branch, which played down the report by descibing the program as a purely entertainment-based show – more intent on making viewers laugh than conveying the facts.
The program doesn’t always pick on Korean cars either:
“The program dealt with our Tiburon and the Lexus SC430 during a recent broadcast, praising the Tiburon as the best sports car under US$100,000 [W104.1 million] while seriously deriding the Lexus.
“Despite this, not one famous foreign carmaker that has been slated on the program, including Lexus, has ever responded with a lawsuit or anything of that nature,” he added.
So Korea chill out I’m sure they have picked on American cars at some point to if they have picked on a quality car like a Lexus. No need to have candle light vigils and send the hackers to hit their website, or claim this is an insult to national pride. How about Korea make their own car show satire and make fun of Jaguars if that will make everyone feel better. Has anyone from Britian seen this show? I’m curious about what other cars they have picked on.
Several years ago in TX a telephone survey guy caught me in the evening in a cooperative mood. He was doing a quality control survey for Hyundai about what people thought of it as a brand name.
He was polite and apologetic, but went on for at least 30 min and maybe more asking me to respond to "impression" type questions — I suppose he got "hung up on" most of the time, & was anxious to take full advantage of a cooperative answerer. I knew enough about business & marketing to feel a certain sympathy for what the company was trying to do though; I respected them for soliciting feedback from potential customers.
I had a vaguely unfavorable impression of Korean car quality at that time but of course that was not based on any personal experience. That phone call made me think, and I noticed (I think soon thereafter) when Hyundai came out with their 10 year 100,000 mile warranty. (They still offer it, lots of ads by the local Hyundai dealer here in North. Calif).
I'm the type of guy who keeps a car forever, but I would certainly now consider a Hyundai favorably as a new (or used) purchase. Hope that makes any Koreans here feel better, & relax. British humor & sarcasm can be particularly insulting and deriding, and of course much TV humor in the US has gotten that way too in the last couple of decades.
As much as I have come to dislike ROK political foreign policy "triangulating", I think it's particularly deplorable & degrading to deliberately insult Koreans as a people (or the products that they make).