SEOUL AND LOS ANGELES — Oles Gadacz recalls those embarrassing days a decade ago when Hyundai Motor Co. was ridiculed as the 95-pound weakling of the auto industry, a purveyor of cheap and poorly made compacts.
At car shows, he got such little respect it felt like customers were kicking sand in his face.
“People breezed by our booth without even breaking stride,” said Gadacz, a Toronto native and the former public relations chief who until his retirement last month served as the Western face for the automaker’s insular chief executive. “Those shows are your chance to show off your product to the world. And there we were, just wallflowers.”
Let’s just say Hyundai has hit the gym, put on some muscle and is ready to settle some old scores.
Today, the company is the world’s fastest-growing automaker and has made no secret about its global ambitions. Behind its signature Sonata mid-size sedan, Hyundai now rivals Ford Motor Co. as one of the world’s largest automakers. Bolstered by good reviews of the 2011 model, the Sonata’s U.S. sales hit 18,536 in April, a 56.9 percent jump from a year earlier. The car trailed Ford’s popular Fusion sedan by only 435 vehicles.
“They have made extraordinary progress in catching up with the world leaders in automotive manufacturing,” said Aaron Bragman, auto-industry analyst at IHS Global Insight.
Hyundai’s profit also jumped nearly fivefold to $1.37 billion for the first quarter of this year — establishing it as the best quarter in company history — boosted by strong sales in India and China. Nobody’s kicking any sand now.
This year Hyundai will roll out its first gasoline-battery hybrid, which one South Korean newspaper has heralded as the “Prius Killer.” In a nation that suffered under nearly half a century of colonial Japanese rule, any sign of beating its rival — whether it’s in sports, diplomacy or car sales — is cause for celebration, analysts say.
“Such competition against Japan is embedded in South Korea,” said Yu Ji-Soo, a business professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.
