Meet JooN Park, the Car Guy Who Created Hyundai N—and Took Its Name

Horacio Pagani. Carroll Shelby. Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher. Men like these have lent their names and legacies to the high-performance brands they created. But we can think of only one man who’s taken the name of a brand and essentially made it his own: JooN Park.

He's the person largely responsible for creating and overseeing the rapid development of Hyundai’s N performance subbrand and its associated vehicles. It’s his baby. In fact, he's become so synonymous with N that he defies linguistic logic and now capitalizes the final letter of his first name as a result. During the media event for the Hyundai Ioniq 6 N in Korea, we caught up with JooN for a chat to talk about his beloved N cars, but more than that, we wanted to learn about who he is and what drives him.

That’s because this dude is a car geek to the core, an enthusiast with blood as blue as N’s signature color. His unbridled passion for what he does gives credibility to the fun-focused excellence of the vehicles he’s helped create and those he's working on now.

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Joon Before JooN

Hailing from Seoul, the 40-something JooN has loved cars for as long as he can remember. “In middle school I learned to drive on my father’s manual transmission car,” JooN said. “Was it legal? Well ... the driving age is 18 in Korea.”

Enthusiasm skipped a generation in JooN’s family. His father didn’t care much about cars, but his grandfather knew how special they could be and were to his grandson. “Before he died, my grandfather gave my dad an account with some money, saying, ‘When JooN gets a driver’s license, buy him a car he really likes,’” JooN said. That car was a used S-Coupe, Hyundai’s early sporty two-door based on the subcompact Excel.

Soon, JooN needed more, so he bought his first new car: a Hyundai Tuscani, better known as the Tiburon in America. “That was the start of my car high life,” JooN said. “I didn’t only get more into driving, but modifying, too. I changed the pistons, the crankshaft, and eventually installed a better engine.” With that, he integrated himself into the Seoul car scene and explored the best driving roads around his vast home city.

As JooN worked with Korean modification shops, he saw an entryway into motorsports. “I told them to check my reaction times for drag racing, and those were so good my shop friends gave me some money to drive their demo cars at races and on track,” he said. Through this small sponsorship, JooN realized he could use his skill and passion to create something bigger.

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Following high school, JooN went to the United States to study English at Florida State University—at least, that was the purported purpose for his move. “In Florida, I had my first JDM experience when I bought a Nissan 300ZX,” he said. “I didn’t study much. I’d do three months at school then three months driving around. I visited 24 states, meeting car friends in and visiting different garages to learn what kinds of things I could do to my Nissan.” The car’s custom license plate read EZ2ENVY.

After that, JooN went back home to Korea for a bit. “If I had a small amount of money, it all went to cars, not dating,” he said. “I had a SW20 Toyota MR2 Turbo, and I went to Japan to gather parts to build it up.” Over a process of extracting, modifying, and reinstalling its engine some 20 times, JooN eventually got the MR2’s 3S-GTE turbo-four to 480 hp, earning a reputation in the Korean modified car scene in the process. “Those 20 times gave me lessons on what I can do better.”

To level himself up, JooN returned to the United States and achieved a master’s degree at Ohio State University. “I was just getting married and spent some money on an E46 BMW M3 and a W203 Mercedes-Benz C55 AMG,” he said. “My wife isn’t a car enthusiast, but the C55 was comfortable enough for her and powerful enough for me.” That AMG accompanied the young couple when they returned to Korea.

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Joining Hyundai and Seizing N Opportunity

There, JooN got a job on Hyundai’s marketing strategy team. “The reason I joined Hyundai was simple: As a Korean, I wanted a Korean car that I wanted to drive,” he said. It was the beginning of a long-term vision, but back then JooN’s work had him stuck on the workaday vehicles Hyundai focused on at the time. There simply wasn’t much space for enthusiasm at the company. “One of my team leaders told me, ‘JooN, it’s not going to happen here. Hyundai is about normal cars. Other things don’t make sense for us.’”

As if such discouragement could stifle JooN’s enthusiasm. One day in the early 2010s, he caught wind of Hyundai’s intentions to re-enter the World Rally Championship. As automaker motorsports efforts are typically aimed at bringing attention to roadgoing cars, JooN saw his opportunity. “Give me three months,” he said, recalling what he told his boss at the time, “and I’ll make a plan for what our high-performance direction could be.”

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Overtime hours were required for JooN to build what became known as the N strategy report. JooN’s boss was more of a marketing guy than an enthusiast but recognized the drive his employee had to make Hyundai cars exciting. He brought JooN to the table to present his N plan to Hyundai’s chairman. In Korea’s hierarchical society, a meeting with such an influential figure can be a make-or-break moment.

Within that 43-page document, JooN laid out N’s direction, its potential model lineup, and even the shape of the N logo, one inspired by a racetrack chicane. Korean heritage was important to the plan, hence the letter N implying the automaker’s Namyang research and development facility—and the legendary Nürburgring in Germany to add performance credibility.

“In the paper, I explained how N isn’t only about cars but also about people,” JooN said. Hyundai didn’t have the knowledge to make worthy enthusiast cars at the time, and JooN knew the automaker would need to bring on top engineering minds for N to succeed. His document contained a list of candidates from performance brands including AMG and M. One of those was Albert Biermann, who spent decades at BMW, rising to leading the Motorsports division—until he was poached by Hyundai to oversee high-performance vehicle development for what would become N. This was a milestone moment; such an important figure in the European performance realm going to an Asian automaker shocked the car world at the time.

Biermann has since departed his role at Hyundai but remains involved in an advisory capacity. JooN says they still talk on the phone almost every week.

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Getting Things Done from the Grassroots Up

N had been approved, but now JooN’s real challenge began: making it work. “From the start, it’s been a lonely fight,” JooN said. “Everyone told me high performance is a niche market that never creates big volume.” N officially launched in 2015 with an outlandish digital race car created for the Gran Turismo video game. That virtual vision gradually became real: The RM16 and RN30 concepts followed, and Hyundai later fielded an i30 N prototype at the Nürburgring 24 Hours. JooN situated himself in Germany to immerse himself in a market he saw as vital to N’s consumer launch. But he had detractors. “They told me, 'This is a country for GTI and AMG. How can you sell Hyundai’s first high-performance car in Germany with all these heritage brands?’”

But those early efforts sowed the seeds for N by gradually developing a pool of about 4,000 interested drivers. “We invited them to the Nürburgring in 2016 when we tested the 2.0-liter turbo engine that would go in the production i30 N, and to show our prototypes,” he said. “We talked like enthusiasts. We had a marketing plan. I thought it was ready, so I suggested to our managing director and CEO that we do online presales for 300 production cars.”

They said no. The six months they presumed it would take was too long. JooN had to concede. “The 300 I suggested decreased to 100 because of my bosses’ concern,” he said. “So I met with colleagues and made a plan for the i30 N First Edition.” That included a preorder website that let interested buyers secure their spot with a 1,000-Euro deposit.

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The run sold out in a day and a half. “If someone made a deposit, a counter ticked down from 100,” JooN said. “The first 50 went in about an hour. The next 50 took a little more time, but right after we hit zero, tears were all over my face. I was crying in my office.” Someone knocked at the door—it was the managing director. “Respect, JooN. Thank you.” As the door closed, a fresh stream of joyful tears poured down JooN’s face.

The emotional connection this man has to the N brand is clear throughout our conversation. Once the 100 First Edition cars had been delivered, N hosted those buyers at the Nürburgring to drive the legendary Nordschleife. JooN whips out his phone to show us a highlight video from that day, October 9, 2017. The soft, nostalgic smile on his face is as if he’s watching a video of his child taking its first steps.

JooN’s work is far from finished. If anything, it’s piling up. “My life is like this: 7 a.m. in the office, 8 a.m. meeting starts, until 11:30 meeting ends. Then lunchtime. Then 1 p.m. meeting starts. Several meetings—30 minutes, one hour, two hours—until 6 to 7 p.m. Then I check email,” he said.

All the while, he lurks in N-centric social media groups and chatrooms, never engaging but always monitoring what members say. “Their response is unfiltered,” JooN said. “If there’s something they don’t like, I can catch it immediately and talk to my people in R&D. That’s our starting point to improve. If there’s something we can make fun for our fans, then I will try as much as possible to make it happen.”

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Taking N to New Heights

At this point he’s won the full support of Hyundai’s chairman. With that, JooN has committed to developing seven new N models with a goal of 100,000 N vehicles sold globally in 2030. “No matter what obstacle is ahead, I’m trying my best because this is my baby and my destiny.

“You’ll see many body styles,” he said, “some that are different from other Hyundai stock vehicles. Lighter-weight EVs, and different engines and hybrid types. Diesel is not my cup of tea. That’s what I can tell you at this moment.”

Where JooN finds joy through all this effort is opportunities to engage with N-thusiasts, whether it’s sharing a quick flash of the hazard lights with another passing N driver or organizing N-specific festivals that draw tens of thousands of fans. These are tangible reminders of his perseverance against the skepticism he faced to get N off the ground.

“That’s why I feel very happy whenever I’m outside,” he said. “Most of the time at work I’m so tired, but whenever I’m at a track, my adrenaline is pumping. I give taxi rides, circuit experiences, and drift laps.”

Indeed, that’s how our interview concludes. JooN leads us to a cone course at the Korea International Circuit, where we strap into the passenger seat of the Ioniq 5 N Drift Spec, a heavily modified, stripped-out smoke machine created for the Goodwood Festival of Speed. In the driver’s seat, JooN proceeds to fling the car sideways—linking turns like someone who’s been doing this for years.

That’s when it really settles in: He’s not a businessman or a marketing shill but an elite car guy fueled by unceasing passion and a love for fun behind the wheel. Through enthusiasm and effort, he’s solidified Hyundai as a legitimate force in the performance car realm, and our time with him only made us more excited for what’s next from N.

P.S.: JooN was also responsible for authoring the strategy report that split Ioniq into its own subbrand in 2014, and he helped set Genesis on its own luxurious path away from Hyundai in 2015. Shelby. Pagani. JooN. After spending some time with the man who’s become a Korean car guy legend, we fail to see much of a difference.