Revisiting Hyundai's first 'sporty two-door, the Scoupe

It's no secret Hyundai has come a very long way from the company's humble roots – and it's done so in a startlingly short period of time. One needs only to cast an eye towards the automaker's current sports car offerings to see what we mean. With hardware like the soon-to-be-updated Genesis Coupe range and the new three-door Veloster, Hyundai has proven itself as a manufacturer capable of building vehicles to run with the best the market has to offer. But it wasn't always so. The Korean automaker first dipped a toe into the sports car market with the 1991 Scoupe. Based on Excel, the two-door featured sportier notchback styling along with a Lotus-tuned suspension.

At its heart, the front-drive Scoupe made use of the same wheezy 81-horsepower four-cylinder engine found in the Excel, which was good enough to get the coupe to 60 mph in 11.4 seconds. Like it's arch rival, the Toyota Paseo (remember?), these were the kind of machines that demanded patience. Click past the jump to take a look at a 1991 MotorWeek segment on the Scoupe LS for a quick trip down memory lane.