Korea Car Sales By Brand 1985-89

I have gone back to some very old car sales for Korea and decided to start them from the mid 1980's.

Local brands: Hyundai was even then taking the lead in sales. The source of the Korean brand figures KAMA, labeled one column as GM Daewoo. I assume they were made under licence to GM. They were doing quite well in the local sales race. Kia disappeared in 1982 only reemerge in '87.

1985 Hyundai Stellar. Italian design meets Ford Cortina chassis.

Import brands: A ban on imported cars was partially lifted in 1987, and sales started in limited numbers.   The KAIDA importers association was formed later in 1995 to assist importers, and they provided the import data seen here. Today imports are much stronger as can be seen later in the series.

85	86	87	88	89	Make	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989
1	1	1	1	1	Hyundai	97,546	108,367	138,845	177,823	301,229
2	2	2	2	2	GM Daewoo	36,963	46,194	77,601	79,395	105,648
-	-	3	3	3	Kia	-	-	30,268	60,792	93,072
3	3	4	4	4	Ssangyong	1,650	1,902	2,734	5,551	14,535
-	-	-	9	5	Ford	-	-	-	17	536
-	-	5	5	6	Mercedes	-	-	10	94	212
-	-	-	6	7	BMW	-	-	-	56	171
-	-	-	8	8	Peugeot	-	-	-	18	88
-	-	-	7	9	Volvo	-	-	-	47	77
-	-	-	10	10	Fiat	-	-	-	11	77
-	-	-	11	11	Audi	-	-	-	9	49
-	-	-	13	12	Saab	-	-	-	2	32
-	-	-	-	13	Honda	-	-	-	-	28
-	-	-	14	14	VW	-	-	-	2	17
-	-	-	12	15	Renault	-	-	-	7	6
					Total Import	0	0	10	263	1,293
					Total	136,159	156,463	249,458	323,824	515,777

To see the next in the series (1990-94), please click here.