Toyota’s Camry midsize saloon has dominated its competition for so long that another car of the year award, in a small market where it sells only a handful of units, would hardly seem like cause for excitement.
But when the Korea Automobile Journalist Association voted the latest version of the Camry the best car of 2013 in January, it created a stir. The Camry has been the best-selling passenger car in North America for all but one of the past 16 years, but in South Korea – home turf of Hyundai – no foreign car had ever picked up such a prize, let alone one from arch-rival Japan.
The timing made things especially awkward for Korea’s carmakers. After several years of breakneck sales and profit growth that have turned Hyundai, and to a lesser extent its smaller sister company Kia, into titans of the global industry, things have cooled lately. Hyundai and Kia have forecast their slowest sales growth for a decade this year, with a strengthening won likely to exacerbate the impact of a decision to hold off on new production capacity.