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Five Hyundai Pony passenger cars exported to Egypt around the time of the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising have provided the period flavor for the recreation of a drab and painful time in the country¡¯s recent history.
Trading firm KACI's Cairo office said it sent five Pony cars made between 1979-81 back to Korea. Hyundai Motors unveiled the Pony, Korea's first domestically produced passenger car, in February 1976, and the first five were exported to Ecuador in July that year. For about 10 years, the company exported some 70,000 of the vehicles mainly to the Middle East, Africa and South America. There, even though 20 years have gone by, it is not unusual to spot a Pony out on the streets. In used-car paradise Egypt, meanwhile, Ponys still serve mostly as taxis.
According to KACI, the five Ponys will be used as props in a film with the working title "Splendid Holiday" that deals with the Gwangju Uprising and its bloody suppression by the military government. The prices Ponys fetch in Egypt¡¯s expensive used car market may seem surprising. When the Pony was first introduced, its cost was US$2,270. Some 25 years later, the beat-up cars still go for $2,300-2,500, or roughly the same in number terms. "This is the first time a car has been re-exported from Egypt to Korea," KACI director Chung Hyun-seok said. "Most people are taken aback when they hear that we import these old cars back to an automotive manufacturing powerhouse like Korea."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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