The Hyundai Hellion is a concept car shown at the 2006 Los Angeles auto show. It belongs to the line of show cars from Hyundai’s California Design studio, which had carried the HCD numbering since 1992 and in 2006 began to add names to its alphanumeric designators.
Hyundai Hellion at a glance
| Maker | Hyundai Motor Company |
|---|---|
| Shown | Los Angeles auto show, 2006 |
| Type | concept car |
| Studio family | Hyundai California Design concepts |
| Series began | HCD-1, 1992 |
| Naming change | names added to numbers from 2006 |
| Later change | numbers dropped entirely after 2015 |
| Parallel series | HED in Europe, HND in Korea |
The English Wikipedia page on the Hyundai California Design concepts has no section on the Hellion; the page therefore describes the studio series, and the show date comes from the video of the car at Los Angeles in 2006.
History of the Hyundai Hellion
Hyundai’s California Design studio opened in 1990 in Fountain Valley, moved to Irvine in January 2003 and is now called the Hyundai California Design & Research Center. For more than a decade its concept cars were known by the letters HCD and a number, starting with the HCD-1 targa-top sports car of 1992, which was aimed at the Mazda Miata and used to build publicity for Hyundai in the United States.
Some of those studies fed production cars: the HCD-4 of 1999 became the Hyundai Santa Fe, and the HCD-14 Genesis became the second-generation Genesis. The Hellion appeared in 2006, the year Hyundai began adding names to the designators as well as numbers, so that its concepts read as names rather than codes. After 2015 the numbers were dropped altogether. The source used here has no separate section on the Hellion, so the car’s own specification is not described on this page.
Design and features
- Los Angeles debut: the concept was shown at the 2006 Los Angeles auto show.
- Named concept: it dates from the year Hyundai started naming its show cars.
- California studio: it came from the same design centre as the HCD-numbered series.
- Series with history: that studio’s studies include the car that became the Santa Fe.
Hyundai Hellion versions
- Hellion concept (2006): the single show car.
The same studio produced the numbered HCD-7 and the Nuvis. The production car that grew out of the series is the Santa Fe. More Hyundai models are in the Hyundai collection.
Video: Hyundai Hellion Concept at 2006 LA Auto Show
Video by The Auto Channel on YouTube.
Sources
- Hyundai California Design concepts, English Wikipedia: studio history, naming policy, series context
