Diving into the realm of electric mobility, strange names, and stealth styling all in one package; we have the Hyundai『45』. The Hyundai electric car concept will make its debut at the Frankfurt International Auto Show in about a week.

What Is『45』?

Before we get into the car, let’s clear up why this is called “『45』”. The『45』name is a combo of stylized Asian quote symbols and “45” for the 45 years since production began for the “Pony”, Hyundai’s first car from 1975. 

We think that the『45』is both a stylized Pony and homage to Hyundai’s concept Pony from 1974. The way that the C-pillar ties into the body with no separation and the sharp break running lower along the body sides is a lot like the production Pony. 

Both the concept and production Pony were the handiwork of designer Giorgetto Giugiaro. While the Pony can only hint at the 1974 concept’s design, another production vehicle stayed a lot truer to the Hyundai and Giugiaro design, the DeLorean. Yes, the Hyundai concept got reused as the basis for the Back-to-the-Future-mobile.

More Shear Than Sculptured

The『45』design, from the cryptic images Hyundai released, moves away from the hey-let’s-party style of body sculpturing we are seeing in many designs. Instead, we have a rather stark, simple design. That’s a good thing. There is also an interesting diagonal break along the body sides that will be interesting to see once we can actually see it instead of these dark, fuzzy teaser images. 

About the styling, Hyundai says, “Inspired by looking back at the brand’s first model in the 1970s, the『45』fully-electric concept car will act as a symbolic milestone for Hyundai’s future EV design.” It also says it’s “sensuous sportiness” design language. When we delve further Hyundai says, “Sensuous stands for enhanced emotional values that customers can experience through design and sportiness is determined to implement those values through innovative mobility solutions.” We couldn’t have made it any clearer if we tried.

Hyundai First EV In 2021

Hyundai is set to introduce its first EV in 2021 on a dedicated platform called E-GMP. It wants customers to look at future EVs and autonomous vehicles as individualized living spaces that can be customized in many ways. Sort of like individual pods with custom interiors.

Hyundai seems to be going along the path first forged by Toyota’s Prius, that being to make it look distinct from everything else on the road because it is different from everything else. But rather than go for quirky, Hyundai looks to be going more severe for a bold and clean approach with the wheels pushed out as far as they can go. 

Keeping It Retro

It’s a hatchback which almost makes it 1970s-retro. It also has animated dot-matrix taillights which seem a little retro themselves.  

In all, we can only hope that Hyundai will be able to pull off keeping their 2021 EV as close to this concept as possible. Now, if Nissan would do the same with their retro IDx from a few years back we’d have a 1970s small Japanese sedan resurgence in the 2020s. 

We’ll have lots of concepts, new production vehicles, and more from the Frankfurt show starting September 10, so come back to motorbiscuit.com often.