All About Eve Korean

In the movie, Bette Davis hires a young assistant, Eve, played by Anne Baxter. By the end of the movie, Eve has learned the game and Bette Davis loses her part.

Let's pretend, for the sake of this story, that Toyota — the world's largest car company — is Bette Davis and upstart Hyundai is Eve.

Learning From Toyota

"It's a very interesting analogy," says Dave Zuchowski, head of sales for Hyundai. He says there's no doubt Hyundai has been watching and learning from Toyota — even through numerous problems with recalls and bad public relations.

"Everything we've really patterned after the way they did it," Zuchowski says. "We also stepped back when they experienced some of their problems last year and wanted to make sure we didn't end up falling into the same trap."

This year Toyota has new problems. The earthquake and tsunami have hurt its production. Meanwhile, Hyundai is running at full capacity. At its Georgia plant, Hyundai is doing something it's never done before: adding a third shift. Zuchowski says it's not just that Toyota has bad luck and Hyundai has been fortunate.

"The Koreans are incredibly determined to establish themselves as a global power player," he says.

Compared to All About Eve . Eve "had the motivation to be that person that could take over from Bette Davis."