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Who Founded Kia? an Inspiring History: From Bicycles and Early Korean Cars to Crushing Debt, Bankruptcy, Hyundai's Unexpected Rescue, and the Reinvent
Paperback
Series: Discover Something New Everyday, Book 29
Technology & EngineeringAutomobiles
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Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 158
Weight: 0.48
Height: 0.34 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
From Bicycles and Early Korean Cars to Crushing Debt and Bankruptcy, Hyundai's Unexpected Rescue, and the Reinvention of a Global Automotive Brand
Before Kia became a global automotive name, it was fighting to build bicycles in a country struggling to rebuild. Decades later, it would be fighting for something far more serious: its own survival.
How did a poor farmer's son named Kim Cheol-ho go from working as a laborer in Japan to laying the foundation for one of South Korea's best-known automobile companies?
And how did the company he started rise through bicycles, motorcycles, commercial vehicles, and passenger cars, only to collapse under crushing financial pressure?
The answer is far more dramatic than the Kia badge on today's roads suggests.
WHO FOUNDED KIA? takes you behind the familiar brand to uncover a remarkable business story filled with ambition, calculated partnerships, dangerous expansion, financial collapse, unexpected rescue, and reinvention.
Follow Kim Cheol-ho from his difficult childhood and early factory years to his decision to build a manufacturing business in Korea. Discover how partnerships with Honda, Mazda, Ford, Peugeot, Fiat, and Lotus helped Kia gain the experience needed to move deeper into automobile production.
Then everything changes.
In 1997, the Asian financial crisis exposes a dangerous weakness beneath Kia's rapid growth. Debt closes in. Bankruptcy follows. Ford does not come to the rescue.
Instead, Kia's fiercest Korean competitor makes the move few would have expected.
Hyundai steps in.
But saving the company financially is only half the battle. Kia still has to overcome its reputation for inexpensive cars, rebuild consumer confidence, develop an identity of its own, and prove that it belongs on the global stage.
From Peter Schreyer's design revolution and the famous tiger-nose grille to the Sportage, Soul, Optima, hybrids, electric vehicles, and the award-winning EV6, this is the story of how Kia repeatedly changed when standing still could have meant disappearing.
Perfect for automotive enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, business-history readers, students, founders, and anyone fascinated by how global companies are actually built, nearly destroyed, and rebuilt.
If you have ever looked at a Kia and wondered who started it, how it survived bankruptcy, why Hyundai became involved, or how a bicycle manufacturer transformed into a global automotive competitor, this book was written for you.
Turn the first page and discover the extraordinary road from a modest Korean manufacturing dream to the Kia the world knows today.
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