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ATLANTA - There may be some walking wounded in the automotive industry these days, but Hyundai isn't one of them.



That's because the Korean manufacturer is coming on like gangbusters. It may not have the sales of a GM, Ford, Chrysler or Toyota yet, but Hyundai is gaining market share, outperforming the industry as a whole and even growing in this tough economy. In 1998, the company had a .6 percent market share. With projected sales of between 500,000 and 600,000 units in 2009, its year-to-date market share is 4.3 percent. As the company notes, that's a 617 percent change from its days wandering in the wilderness.



If you don't care so much for numbers, but the reasons why this growth has taken place, let me enumerate them. Initially, Hyundai's strong warranty and value-priced offerings opened the door. More recently, these factors have weighed in:



- The Hyundai Assurance Plan, which allows buyers who finance their vehicles to return them if they lose their jobs. According to exec Miles Johnson at the time of this presentation in Atlanta, only approximately 10 people had brought their cars back. The fact that other manufacturers soon followed with suit with their own return policies testifies to the plan's success.



- Hyundai's Corporate Average Fuel Economy is 28.4 mpg, making the company #3 among all the manufacturers, lagging only behind Toyota and Honda. And Johnson projects a 35-mpg rating by 2015.



- People Are Paying Their Respects with the residual value of Hyundai vehicles steadily increasing and the number of people who would even consider looking at a Hyundai more than doubling in recent years. In tests where the vehicles are disguised or the badging is removed, as Johnson said, "People no longer are disappointed when we reveal it to be a Hyundai."



- The Genesis Winning North American Car of the Year at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show. I've been writing for some time about how Hyundai has been benchmarking high-end vehicles such as Lexus and how that effort has paid off. The success of the deserving Genesis sedan underlines the point.

Tags: Hyundai

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Winsome Twosome: Hyundai Genesis line expands with a coupe was originally published by New Orleans Auto Reviews: Hyundai. Read the full story by clicking here.