It was, absolutely, a challenge Hyundai’s design division was glad to be given. Led by Hak Soo Ha, the corporate’s head of inside design, Hyundai designers set about stripping down a first-generation Pony after which constructing it again up with an electrical powertrain, trendy headlights and taillights and a completely trendy inside surroundings.

The results of the one-off challenge, the Hyundai Pony Heritage EV, was shared with out a lot fanfare on Instagram, accompanied by a press launch to have fun Hyundai’s new buyer centre positioned in Busan, South Korea. The automobile additionally options fender-mounted aspect mirrors and retro but futuristic Nixie tube devices that embody the final word in Nineteen Seventies-era styling.

What’s most attention-grabbing is that an precise classic mannequin was used reasonably than making a physique merely impressed by the previous.

The Hyundai Pony Heritage EV just isn’t solely a testomony to the inventive spirit of the corporate’s design division, which is below the route of Luc Donckerwolke, however additionally it is a tip of the hat to Giorgio Giugiaro, the daddy of the unique Pony, which was unveiled 47 years in the past on the 1974 Turin Motor Present.

And what’s doubly attention-grabbing about all that is that this Pony served because the inspiration for the design of the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the primary mannequin to return out of the all-electric division arrange by the Korean automaker.

The Pony, we’ll remind you, was Hyundai’s first actual automobile, acompact mannequin constructed on a comparatively standard rear-wheel drive platform. The 2-door hatchback that Hyundai used for this challenge got here available on the market just a few years later, thouh it largely retained the styling of the four-door mannequin. This era of the Pony was by no means bought in North America, however shoppers right here in fact would change into very acquainted with the one which adopted.

Hyundai is evident in regards to the mannequin that was proven; an insider informed Automobile and Driver, “Do not learn an excessive amount of into it. It got here out of nowhere, like a murals. ”

Nonetheless, one thing tells us an EV like this might be an enormous success.