ABSTRACT
The Americans at HMA realized over the years that their Korean counterparts did not love cars. Sometimes they wondered why. “Passion for cars doesn’t seem to exist in the Korean culture,” a senior HMA manager told me over lunch in 1992. He recalled a visit to Chung Se Yung’s house in Seoul with a group of American car journalists junketing at Hyundai Motor expense. “They asked him what car he liked best, and he said a Cadillac,” said the manager. “They told him stories of Japanese car owners”—how some had fleets of exotic foreign models they adored. S.Y. had only his chauffeur-driven Hyundai Grandeurs. He was never known to drive. “Mr. Chung is no car guy,” said an American colleague.
