Say goodbye to Hyundai’s sporty run at the sporty tuner market, for now at least. Auto News (requires subscription) reported yesterday that, even though it was just redesigned last year, this will be the last year of production for the Tiburon.

Alas, all is not yet lost Korean car fans! While Hyundai is atimate the Tiburon isn’t being replaced, it will be succeeded by Hyundai’s new rear-wheel-drive Genesis coupe set to go on sale next spring (coincidentally the same time the Tiburon bites the dust).

“We are seriously looking at a small front-wheel-drive coupe to replace the Tiburon, but I can’t say when that will happen,” said John Krafcik, the product development vice president for Hyundai Motor America.

The news isn’t suprising really, while the Tiburon was initially launched to shed the stereotype that Hyundai was in touch with the younger generation and could provide something other than boring econo-boxes, sales were down nearly 29% for the first quarter of this year to just 2,071 units. Proof that it is nearly impossible to manufacture value priced cars at low sales volumes, even if it’s built in Asia.

Tags: Hyundai, rip, tiburon

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Hyundai. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.