Hyundai Needs To Get Street Cred from World Rally Car

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Ford and Volkswagen are seeing some competition for street cred with the return of Hyundai to World Rally Car racing after being absent for more than a decade. It's a smart move for the Korean automaker.

And it's one that needs to be marketed like crazy in the United States. We'll let Steve Shannon, Hyundai's marketing guru in U.S., work out all the details but the message needs to get out that Hyundai builds world-class racing machines.

It's an extension of the old NASCAR saying (which is seeing a Renaissance): "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday." Basically, if a Chevy won the Daytona 500 on a Sunday sales would spike the following day as buyers stampeded into the local Chevy dealer to buy an Impala. As pointed out in this article from the International Business Times, "Fans want to drive a car that looks an awful lot like what they watch race, [said Robin] Pemberton, [vice president of competition for NASCAR], adding that it was good for dealership networks to show a car the manufacturer is racing on the weekend."

According to RallySportMag.com, "Hyundai representatives and drivers are calling this a development season, and a new car is in the midst for 2015." We know it would be cool if it was the Genesis Coupe or even a souped up Veloster but it's a performance enhanced i20, which is equivalent to the Accent.

Maybe that's what Hyundai can do for us. Build a kick-ass Accent based on the World Rally Car and bring it to our shores. It could totally destroy the Toyota FR-S and Subaru BRZ.

The only bad news? WRC doesn't race in the United States but Hyundai should still be able to exploit some of that racing vibe here in this country.

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