Academy Hyundai Pony 2

We have looked at the kits of Hyundai's Stellar and Excel by Academy, but now we'll have a look at Academy's model of the Pony, which not only was South Korea's first mass-produced car, but was also a surprising success in Canada... where it was that nation's best-selling car for a time! As with the Stellar, the Pony was never sold in the United States due to it's failure to comply with that country's emissions laws.

The box art is fairly typical of Academy's '80's Hyundai kits, featuring a photograph of the actual model on the lid. Yes, the kit is motorized, so like the other two, it is a curbside with minimal underside detail.

The body..... ugh..... is molded in red plastic, and as with the Excel, it seems to be just a bit larger than the listed 1:24 scale. The roof also appears to be a couple of scale inches too tall, though I can't say for sure if that is because it actually is too tall, or if the upper door frame features are just poorly defined. It rather looks like a VW Rabbit or Mopar Horizon/Omni with a high-top conversion, but honestly, those three cars did look kind of similar in real life, too. Actually, the similarity between this and the Rabbit is not copycatting or coincidence, as both were styled by Italdesign.

Here we have the dash (top and bottom) front and rear bumpers, rear seat, chassis plate, and a driver figure. I never pointed this out in the other Hyundai reviews, but the driver is wearing a five-point safety harness. Why? It's a freakin' late '80's Hyundai! Yes, said driver figure is just as emaciated as he was in the other two kits. The bumpers are missing the small "accordion" type fillers which bridge the gap between the rear edge of the bumper and the fender on the real car.

The other black plastic sprue includes the fuel tank, front seats, console, steering column, front suspension, interior panels, wipers, front struts, rear suspension, mirrors, steering wheel, muffler, grille, and various other widgets for the motorized aspect of the kit.

Just like the Excel and Stellar, the Pony's chrome sprue has some of the best-looking plating I've ever seen. The Pony shares the same wheel design as the Excel, but includes reflectors for the head and tail lights, as well as the tailpipe.

Whoops! That's the hatch cover below the chrome sprue. The glass unit in this kit is tinted, though it's not as distracting in it's light smoked tone as the Excel's oddball blue-green tint. That being said, the head light lenses have air bubbles in them, and the detail on both head and tail light lenses is a bit ill-defined.

Tires are the same Michelins used in the Stellar and Excel, and the poly caps, geared rear axle, and electric motor are common to the three kits as well.

Again, the instruction sheet is no-nonsense and to the point. No decals are included in the kit, but the 1600 badges are molded into the fenders.

So, all in all, the Academy Hyundai Pony kit isn't completely terrible, but unremarkable in almost every way imaginable. In other words, in spirit at least, it's a near perfect replica of the real car! I'll be having a little fun with this one, adding some aftermarket wheels from the now-defunct XS Tuning, and the Hungarian food delivery decal scheme from the AMT '77 Pacer wagon.