Tour of the Seoul Motor Show: The car show with a difference

E s is not a hall of its own, let alone a pavilion the size of a football field that a trade fair construction company worked on for a year. It is not fancy, it does not offer the wow factor that drives architecture and interior design students to ecstasy. The Hyundai booth at the Seoul Motor Show is big, however. A dark throat the size of an aircraft hangar opens up in front of the visitor who enters exhibition hall two on the Kintex exhibition grounds an hour's drive from Korea's capital Seoul. Sparse illumination, dark carpet, which at first glance looks like an advertising island for the dark side of power, is pure pragmatism. You want to earn money, not spend it.

n Even the top dogs do not want to buy the edge. Although Hyundai had not even presented the large sedans of its subsidiary Genesis and the luxury cars of the Equus brand with pretended understatement, with all environmentally friendly and sensible automobiles, they pulled a pretty white rabbit out of their hat to the great attention of the local media . The long-legged enduro is a bit of an off-road vehicle, a bit of a sports coupé, a bit of a recreational vehicle, but above all an eye-catcher.

And to make it clear who has the stars in the team, two Germans pose for the photographers after the presentation, next to two high-ranking managers from the group: Peter Schreyer, who after his success at Kia is now also in command of the Hyundai design and a mustache-bearded man with glasses who looks somewhat familiar to us, but more on green grass than on anthracite-colored carpet. That's right, the man in the gray suit is Uli Stielike, 1980 European champion, runner-up world champion and coach of the South Korean national soccer team since last September.