HYUNDAI Sonata 1989-1993 Photos, engines & full specs

While Hyundai was still struggling to find its design identity, it launched the second generation of the Sonata as its flagship model, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

The first generation of the Sonata was the top trim-level for the Hyundai Stelar, a name dropped from 1989 onward. It was introduced in Korea in the summer of 1988, but the world got to know it only in September the same year. It was a big improvement over the boxy-looking Stelar, which looked like it wasn't ready to leave the assembly line.

Hyundai worked hard to understand what the ItalDesign studio tried to achieve with the Sonata, but in the end, things went well. The car finally featured body-color door-mirrors and softened edges. It didn't look like it was unfinished anymore. It was an evolved-looking vehicle with integrated headlights into the front fascia and turn-signals on the corners. But it still had black door-handles.

Inside, the base trim level featured cloth upholstery, but that was changed on the top-spec version, which introduced the leather seats and other amenities. Inside, the center stack and the instrument cluster were installed under one roof and easy to reach the driver's controls. The center stack hosted the gear-selector for the automatic transmission (or gear-stick for the manual version) and the handbrake. But it was not a luxury sedan. It was more of a contender for the likes of the Honda Accord.

Hyundai understood that it could not sell a medium-sized car with a small engine, but it still wanted to get a bigger market share. That is why it offered the Sonata with an affordable, 1.8-liter, and 95 hp engine, but it also introduced a V6 version with 146 horses for those who were not satisfied in the under 100 hp league.