Every now and then, we welcome new cars to the Shedly fold. It’s always a delight to see once-expensive vehicles brought down by the ravages of time, taxation and a total lack of interest.
This week’s entry will probably end up being both a debutant and a swansong at the same time. According to a known source for this sort of information, there are only 17 Hyundai Grandeurs registered in the UK - and according to Nic, the known boss of PH content, the level of interest in it may turn out to be equally minuscule. All we’re saying is, don’t expect to see another one on here anytime soon.
Many of those posting in the forum might welcome that thought, possibly going so far as to suggest the use of fire as a means of reducing Grandeur numbers still further. Others may bemoan the unstoppable erosion of the barge wafting movement. One thing’s for sure: nobody will praise the UK Government for taxing perfectly usable curios like this off the road. As the ad says, with just the right degree of outrage, this Hyundai sits at the top of the taxation punishment scaffold at £735pa. You might see this as a step too far or, more calmly, as an acceptable addition to the price – albeit one which will annually repeat itself on an upwardly sliding scale.
Whichever view you take will depend on your attitude towards large-engined luxury cars built by firms with a good reputation for reliability. The Grandeur certainly has some heritage. For ten years before the rather nasty Dynasty arrived in 1996, the Grandeur had been Hyundai’s flagship motor. It was never imported into the UK, apart from a small batch brought in for Hyundai UK’s big knobs to mooch around in. Shed doesn’t think this is one of those cars as the reg number indicates a registration point somewhere in the West Country, and Hyundai’s HQ is in Leatherhead, Surrey.
The gen-four car you’re looking at here in either admiration or disgust was the first modern-looking model. The suspension was fully independent, and the 3.3-litre ‘Lambda’ V6 chugged out 232hp and 224lb ft through the front wheels, enough with the 5-speed slushbox auto trans for a 0-60mph time in the mid-sevens and a top end of 147mph. The combined mpg figure was around 26mpg, hence the punitive tax rate.
Some Grandeur features do date the car somewhat, like the Dolby cassette player and the manly steering wheel that you could use to pilot a supertanker through the Suez Canal, but others like the dual-zone climate control will continue to satisfy the modern motorist, assuming they’re still working, of course. We’ve no reason to suppose they won’t be. This car whistled through its MOT test in March once the garage had sorted out the single advisory, which is a first in Shed’s experience: ‘offside rear other passenger door likely to open inadvertently or not remain closed’.
Getting past the interesting philosophical point of what the difference might be between a door opening inadvertently and a door not remaining closed, there’s no visible issue in that area now, or in any other one come to that. The wheels have a bit of pox on them, but the body looks as clean and straight as you’d expect from a car that’s clearly been cherished by the same owner for the last 12 years. The seats look like they might have all the lateral support of a pizza shovel, but the leather is nice and shiny and, unlike the crotch of the postmistress’s raciest bloomers, split-free.
Hyundai still makes the Grandeur. The current gen-seven makes quite the styling statement with its cliff-like cheesegrater grille, shallow glasshouse and chiselled profile. Look it up and be amazed/appalled. Long before Aldi was selling instant coffee by the same name, the Grandeur wore an Azera badge in some markets, the ones that still put a value on big saloons which can be driven by bods in caps while you take up a comfortable position in the rear compartment, a situation Shed always looks forward to on his naughty assignations with the PM.
Admittedly, it’s a long way off a gen-two Toyota Century with its purring 5.0-litre V12 engine, but then it’s a long way off a good secondhand Century’s price too at one-nine-nine-five quid. Although he’s never been in a Grandeur, Shed ventures the opinion that there will be far worse chariots in which to ooze smoothly along the boulevard of life.
1 / 4
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 4 3"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1 1"%3E%3C/svg%3E)