Media mogul reignites lifelong passion for cars
Published: 07 Aug. 2005, 21:48
An entrepreneur who left the car sales business to jump into magazine publishing is returning to his first love.
Kim Young-chull, the 67-year-old chief executive of Kaya Media Corp., which publishes the Korean editions of Marie Claire and Esquire magazines, said that next month, the company will release the first Korean version of Motor Trend, the largest automotive magazine in the United States.
Mr. Kim’s relationship with cars goes back nearly half a century.
His late father ran the sole driver’s license testing ground in Pyongyang during the Korean War. After the war, the family moved to South Korea, where Mr. Kim’s father opened a repair shop for U.S. military vehicles.
Having grown up among stacks of car magazines, Mr. Kim went on to study mechanical engineering at Kansas State University and returned to Korea in the mid-1960s to begin a bus manufacturing business with his father.
Poor sales forced them to file for bankruptcy after just one year, but Mr. Kim persevered in the car business.
His life-altering experience came in 1980, when he was traveling in England. He spotted a Panther Lima sports car on a street, and it was love at first sight. After learning the Panther Motor Co. was under court receivership, Mr. Kim and a group of investors purchased the company and turned it around, pushing annual production from 100 units to 800 within two years.
In 1987, he sold the company to Korea’s Ssangyong Group, whose then-chairman, Kim Suk-won, was developing an interest in the automobile industry.
With what is now Ssangyong Motor Co., Mr. Kim worked as the company’s senior consultant for two years.
In the meantime, Mr. Kim managed to compile years of his diary entries into a book called “There Is No Boundary in Business & Love.” When the book became a best seller, he was bombarded with interview requests, especially from women’s magazines.
But reading those publications himself, Mr. Kim sensed “they were only interested in sensationalism.”
He began his magazine publishing business in 1990, but it was not until 1993, when he obtained the Korean publishing rights to Marie Claire, that Mr. Kim’s magazine business boomed.
After scoring more deals, Mr. Kim has now come full circle to return to where it all began.
“My father dedicated his whole life to cars,” he said. “And publishing Motor Trend is my tribute to him.”
by Kim Tae-jin
Kim Young-chull, the 67-year-old chief executive of Kaya Media Corp., which publishes the Korean editions of Marie Claire and Esquire magazines, said that next month, the company will release the first Korean version of Motor Trend, the largest automotive magazine in the United States.
Mr. Kim’s relationship with cars goes back nearly half a century.
His late father ran the sole driver’s license testing ground in Pyongyang during the Korean War. After the war, the family moved to South Korea, where Mr. Kim’s father opened a repair shop for U.S. military vehicles.
Having grown up among stacks of car magazines, Mr. Kim went on to study mechanical engineering at Kansas State University and returned to Korea in the mid-1960s to begin a bus manufacturing business with his father.
Poor sales forced them to file for bankruptcy after just one year, but Mr. Kim persevered in the car business.
His life-altering experience came in 1980, when he was traveling in England. He spotted a Panther Lima sports car on a street, and it was love at first sight. After learning the Panther Motor Co. was under court receivership, Mr. Kim and a group of investors purchased the company and turned it around, pushing annual production from 100 units to 800 within two years.
In 1987, he sold the company to Korea’s Ssangyong Group, whose then-chairman, Kim Suk-won, was developing an interest in the automobile industry.
With what is now Ssangyong Motor Co., Mr. Kim worked as the company’s senior consultant for two years.
In the meantime, Mr. Kim managed to compile years of his diary entries into a book called “There Is No Boundary in Business & Love.” When the book became a best seller, he was bombarded with interview requests, especially from women’s magazines.
But reading those publications himself, Mr. Kim sensed “they were only interested in sensationalism.”
He began his magazine publishing business in 1990, but it was not until 1993, when he obtained the Korean publishing rights to Marie Claire, that Mr. Kim’s magazine business boomed.
After scoring more deals, Mr. Kim has now come full circle to return to where it all began.
“My father dedicated his whole life to cars,” he said. “And publishing Motor Trend is my tribute to him.”
by Kim Tae-jin
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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