One of the exhibits at the National Science Museum in Daejeon is this early 1990s Hyundai Elantra, donated by the manufacturer, explaining how an automobile works.

Throughout the 1980s, Hyundai was able to market only a two-vehicle lineup in the export markets: initially two RWD models, the Pony and the Stellar, switching later to FWD equivalents, the Excel and the Sonata. The Excel, in particular, was extremely popular in the US market. But eventually Hyundai started to hit a wall; there was only so much it could do by selling low-tech cars and relying heavily on cheap labor (which was becoming a thing of the past in South Korea). It had to expand its lineup.

The Elantra was introduced in 1991 to that end. Initially intended to replace the Excel, instead it coexisted with the Excel as a more upscale sibling. Its claim to fame was a Mitsubishi-developed 16-valve DOHC engine; it was the first Hyundai to utilize multi-valve and/or multi-camshaft designs, by then common among competitors as a quick way to increase engine output without sacrificing fuel economy.

Hyundai was definitely very late to the DOHC and multivalve party, as well as ABS and airbag parties. Just two decades later, however, Hyundai would be at the forefront of new technologies, such as widespread use of electronic stability control and gasoline direct injection in non-luxury cars.

The original Elantra received the J1 chassis code. Subsequent Elantras used J2, XD, HD, and MD.