Hyundai had already ventured into car production by producing locally built versions of the Ford Cortina under licence from 1968.

When the company wanted to develop their own car, they hired George Turnbull, the former managing director of Austin and Morris at British Leyland in 1974.

In 1981, the small boot lid from the saloon was replaced by a hatchback tail gate creating a new five-door liftback model.

The Pony was loosely based on both the earlier licence-built Ford Cortinas and the Morris Marina, with former British Leyland engineers being hired by Hyundai to design the car.

The pickup version was added in October that year, only available with the smaller, 1.2-litre (73 cu in), engine and a 380 kg (838 lb) payload.

With the Pony II, exports also began to the UK in the spring of 1982 – making it the first South Korean car to be sold there.

Initially, the Pony was positioned as a budget offering between Eastern Bloc brands (Lada, Skoda) and the lower echelons of established Japanese makes for sales, marking the beginning of a successful foray into this market by Korean carmakers.

The GL/CX included vinyl-cloth seats, a standard clock (which was mounted in the instrument cluster for 1984–1986 models, and for 1987, a digital clock was added in the centre of the upper dash) rear wiper, passenger-side mirror, tinted glass, lockable fuel door, standard door guards, 50/50 fold-down seats, upgraded interior trim, and (from 1985) an available 1.6-litre (98 cu in) engine.

The GLS/CXL included the above with the option of a tachometer, passenger-side vanity mirror, full cloth seats, and (from 1985) a standard 1.6 L engine.

Differences between the Canadian Pony versus its European counterparts were 8-kilometre-per-hour (5.0 mph) bumpers, sealed-beam headlights, side marker lamps instead of indicator repeaters (also in a lower position), and slight alterations in interior instrumentation and trim application.

The Pony Coupe Concept was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign and first shown at the 1974 Turin Motor Show.

[20] The N Vision 74 is equipped with dual electric traction motors (both fitted to the rear axle) with a combined output of 670 hp (500 kW) and 664 lb⋅ft (900 N⋅m) of torque, drawing from a 62.4 kW-hr battery pack and hydrogen tanks storing 4.2 kg (9.3 lb) for an on-board fuel cell.

[23][24] The powertrain specifications were not available; the interior featured an instrument panel with two three-digit nixie tube displays for state of charge and vehicle speed.