Currently reading: Hyundai UK boss steps down

Tony Whitehorn, who has overseen the firm's meteoric rise in the UK, is leaving the company

Hyundai UK boss Tony Whitehorn is stepping down from his role.

Whitehorn, officially Hyundai Motor UK’s president and CEO, joined Hyundai from Toyota in 2005, when the Korean firm was the UK’s 23rd best-selling brand, with just 28,000 cars sold.

Last year, Hyundai sold just over 93,000 cars and was the UK’s ninth best-selling brand, outselling the likes of Peugeot, Skoda, Seat, Honda, Citroen, and Fiat

Whitehorn, who was named an Outstanding UK Leader by Autocar at the 2016 Autocar Awards, has been one of the great innovators of the UK car market and car sales in the past decade. He helped propel his brand into the mainstream by taking full advantage of 2009’s scrappage scheme, which was designed to stimulate UK new car sales after the global financial crisis.

He also launched new showrooms in shopping centres in a break from the traditional car dealership, and has been an early innovator with selling cars online. That’s recently extended to the sale of Hyundai’s new Kona Electric, the initial batch of which have been sold only online and almost exclusively to buyers new to the brand. 

Whitehorn will step down at the end of the year, but will continue working with Hyundai into next year as an executive advisor in the transition to new management.

 

Mark Tisshaw

mark-tisshaw-autocar
Title: Editor

Mark is a journalist with more than a decade of top-level experience in the automotive industry. He first joined Autocar in 2009, having previously worked in local newspapers. He has held several roles at Autocar, including news editor, deputy editor, digital editor and his current position of editor, one he has held since 2017.

From this position he oversees all of Autocar’s content across the print magazine, autocar.co.uk website, social media, video, and podcast channels, as well as our recent launch, Autocar Business. Mark regularly interviews the very top global executives in the automotive industry, telling their stories and holding them to account, meeting them at shows and events around the world.

Mark is a Car of the Year juror, a prestigious annual award that Autocar is one of the main sponsors of. He has made media appearances on the likes of the BBC, and contributed to titles including What Car?Move Electric and Pistonheads, and has written a column for The Sun.

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jag150 4 December 2018

Any chance of upgrading the

Any chance of upgrading the i800?
WallMeerkat 4 December 2018

To be fair Hyundai has spun

To be fair Hyundai has spun around from white goods to a lot of cars worth considering, such as the i30 fastback (soon in n form), Ioniq EV/hybrid and even the evergreen i40 is a quality family car.

Plus they have a range to suit the SUV fad.

One or 2 roadbumps along the way, the Veloster didn't sell and unfortunately they never properly replaced the Coupe/Tiburius.