Hyundai’s transformation from a budget brand to a quality, high-value marque that has its Asian and significantly, European rivals now analysing its every move was again demonstrated recently when the South Korean car-maker’s all-new i40 Tourer received the gold award at the Global Car Body Benchmarking conference in Germany.
Arguably as influential as a five-star rating from the independent NCAP safety authority, and certainly more relevant than the myriad ‘car of the year awards’ dished out annually across the globe, the ‘EuroCarBody’ awards ranked the i40 Tourer ahead of an elite field of new-generation vehicles including the Audi A6 (second), Mercedes-Benz B-class (third), BMW 1 Series (fourth) and Mazda CX-5 (fifth). This is the first time in the conference’s 13-year history that an Asian brand has received the gold award, which is billed as the highest accolade in car body engineering worldwide. It is also the first time Hyundai has entered a vehicle in the event.
Now in its 13th year, the EuroCarBody conference brings together the top engineers from the world’s leading car and components manufacturers to study and assess what are considered to be the top new vehicles introduced in the current model year.
The car-makers responsible for these new models make detailed technical presentations and provide quite extraordinary access to the vehicle (in cutaways, bodies-in-white, and so on), leaving more than 500 delegates – their peers – and an 18-member international OEM panel of experts to evaluate them according to five categories: efficient development concept, effective material use and application, production efficiency, car-body-implied customer value and information content of the presentation.
Delegates are also provided with a set of standardised benchmarking data for all car bodies presented, which enables direct comparisons in areas such as weights, parts, materials, joining techniques and production specifics.
In particular, the judges praised the i40’s “comprehensive engineering and effective development of materials, as well as the production efficiency”. Recognition was also paid to the use of high-strength steel and improved joints in the structure which, according to Hyundai, contribute to high energy absorption efficiency for the lightweight body and in turn provides increased safety to occupants in the event of a crash.
“The Hyundai i40 ranked first place in three of the five voting categories, namely in its production concept, customer value and the quality of the presentation itself,” the judges said in their closing report. “Its development concept and high-strength steel-based material-concept came in second place in the competition. In particular, it was the presentation of Hyundai’s self-developed body shop production innovations that won the audience over.
“With extremely flexible locators, grippers, jigs and welding guns, the body shop in Ulsan, South Korea, allows for an extremely flexible and cost-effective production of a wide variety of models on a single production line.”
The i40 was designed and engineered in Europe and was recently awarded a maximum five-star safety rating from the European NCAP regime.