Kia Motors is the oldest car company in Korea. At the end of 1944, World War II had not yet ended, and the exhausted Japanese army had not completely withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula. On one day in December, Kia Seiko, the predecessor of Kia, finally broke through various difficulties and was established in Seoul. For every Kia person and even the entire Korean automobile industry, this moment is worth commemorating.
At that time, South Korea's domestic economy and industry were waiting to be thriving. Years of war had brought the Korean people's living standards close to the minimum standard, and cars were still a luxury thing at the time. At that time, Jingcheng Jinggong produced a popular means of transportation-bicycles.
At the beginning of 1945, the bicycle factory had begun to take shape, and by the spring of the following year, Korea's first bicycle was shipped. For the next 15 years, the company has been silently producing their bicycles, while investing profits to continuously expand the scale of the factory. Soon after the union was established in 1960, the company decided to produce their first motorized product, and the motorcycle named c-100 was officially shipped in October 1961. The following year, a small three-wheeled van k360 Also available. Since then, Kia has embarked on the road of "automobile".
In 1971, Kia Service Corporation was established, and began to provide protection for the three-wheeled trucks that had been sold in large numbers, and intended to develop four-wheeled vehicles, after all, this was the inevitable path for the company's development and growth. In the same year, the company launched the four-wheel van titan. Due to the rapid economic development of South Korea at that time, this kind of light multi-purpose truck was very popular among small companies and self-employed individuals who had just started their businesses, and sales rose rapidly. In 1974, the company's first
Kia Motors is the oldest car company in Korea. At the end of 1944, World War II had not yet ended, and the exhausted Japanese army had not completely withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula. On one day in December, Kia Seiko, the predecessor of Kia, finally broke through various difficulties and was established in Seoul. For every Kia person and even the entire Korean automobile industry, this moment is worth commemorating.
At that time, South Korea's domestic economy and industry were waiting to be thriving. Years of war had brought the Korean people's living standards close to the minimum standard, and cars were still a luxury thing at the time. At that time, Jingcheng Jinggong produced a popular means of transportation-bicycles.
At the beginning of 1945, the bicycle factory had begun to take shape, and by the spring of the following year, Korea's first bicycle was shipped. For the next 15 years, the company has been silently producing their bicycles, while investing profits to continuously expand the scale of the factory. Soon after the union was established in 1960, the company decided to produce their first motorized product, and the motorcycle named c-100 was officially shipped in October 1961. The following year, a small three-wheeled van k360 Also available. Since then, Kia has embarked on the road of "automobile".
In 1971, Kia Service Corporation was established, and began to provide protection for the three-wheeled trucks that had been sold in large numbers, and intended to develop four-wheeled vehicles, after all, this was the inevitable path for the company's development and growth. In the same year, the company launched the four-wheel van titan. Due to the rapid economic development of South Korea at that time, this kind of light multi-purpose truck was very popular among small companies and self-employed individuals who had just started their businesses, and sales rose rapidly. In 1974, the company's first small car with a gasoline engine, Brisa, was born. From then on, Kia began to integrate with the development direction of the world's car manufacturers, and entered the highly competitive car market.
In 1975, the pickup version of Brisa, the b-1000, left the factory. Not long after, Kia launched a new car, the K303. Compared with the very immature Brisa, this family car has obvious progress and maturity, so it has achieved larger sales. benefit. However, due to a variety of reasons, the cars produced by Kia at that time still had obvious defects, and there were problems in the development and design of new models. The company decided to first learn from the successful experience of foreign road models. So in 1979, Kia imitated the French Peugeot 604 sedan and assembled the Italian Fiat 132 sedan.
For the company’s long-term development, the Kia r&d center was formally established in 1984 to take on Kia’s technical research and new product development and design tasks, laying a solid foundation for Kia’s rich and complete model system and advanced technology content in the future. Strengthened Kia's determination to "go its own way". In 1986, Kia’s self-designed small passenger car Brisa was delivered. In the same year, Kia reached a cooperation agreement with Ford Motor Company of the United States, and began to design and produce a pride model with Ford technology.
In 1988, two vans, rhino and trade, were shipped out of the factory, marking that the company is still attaching great importance to truck production while vigorously developing cars. In July 1989, Kia established a research institute in Tokyo. Four months later, the Kia Economic Research Center was also established.
Entering the nineties, Kia has made a big change. In March 1990, the company officially changed its name to Kia Motors Corporation (Kia Motors Corporation), and immediately after the completion of the Yashan Bay plant, models such as potentia, sephia and sportage appeared one after another, and Kia entered a golden period of development. In 1994, Kia spent its 50-year-old golden jubilee ceremony, but the company's operations had problems and development was worrying. In Kia’s two largest markets, domestic and North America, sales continued to decline, and the Kia r&d center had to be closed due to funding problems. In 1996, Kia made a decision to purchase the production rights of the British Lotus Co., Ltd.'s small open-top sports car elan, and Kia made changes to the car on its own to suit the relative customer base.It's a pity that this beautiful car was still dead, and it was put on hold before it was produced.
