This Remarkably Preserved Hyundai Excel Reminded Me That Boring Cars Deserve Love Too

Some cars in this world are almost universally liked, appealing to the masses and impressing with their outrageous performance, style, luxury, and/or price. Then there are cars that only excite the eccentrics among us, like station wagons to rare versions of boring models to unexpectedly well-preserved examples of old normal cars. Naturally, if you’re reading Jalopnik then you’re likely one of those eccentric folks, so I figure you may also enjoy seeing this remarkably well-kept Hyundai Excel sedan I saw street parked in Los Angeles.

I’ll admit there’s not much that is particularly remarkable about the Hyundai Excel beyond being the Korean automaker’s first model sold in the United States, hitting the market back in 1986. It introduced Hyundai into the American vernacular and served hundreds of thousands of buyers as an affordable subcompact car that looked nice enough. This example I found casually street parked in LA looks to be a later second-generation model with no blemishes to report aside from fading, scratches, and taped-up headlights. It ain’t museum quality, but considering that it’s a cheap subcompact that’s older than me, it’s held up quite well.

Facelifted second-generation Hyundai Excels like this one were sold in the U.S. from 1991 to 1994, so this example could potentially be up to 34 years old. According to Kelly Blue Book, a brand new Hyundai Excel GL sedan cost $9,659 in 1994, so if the Excel that I saw sold for that price, the owner has certainly gotten their money’s worth. Beyond this Excel’s notable mechanical longevity, it somehow held up cosmetically over all those years despite living in the big bad city of Los Angeles. It even looks to have its original plastic wheel covers. I remember when my neighbor bought the Excel’s successor, a dowdy looking maroon Hyundai Elantra wagon, and it had the same exact wheel covers. 

That’s the power of seeing well-kept everyday cars like this one. For the weirdos like me who remember cars better than anything else, seeing a new-looking Hyundai Excel took me right back to my childhood. My neighbors didn’t have 1994 Lamborghini Diablo VTs or Porsche 964 911s, so seeing cars like this regular old Hyundai so well-preserved gives me the warm fuzzies. These photos could have been taken in the late 1990s and you’d never know it beyond the modern picture quality. It made me smile, so maybe it’ll make you smile, too.