South Korean vehicles have outpaced both European and American vehicles in initial quality. That's according to the J. D. Power and Associates 2004 Initial Quality Study released Thursday.

Manufacturers of Korean-branded vehicles, strongly driven by Hyundai Motor's performance, have aggressively cut initial quality problems by 57 percent in the past six years. That's a drop from 272 problems per 100 vehicles or PP100 in 1998 to just 117 this year.

This dramatic improvement is a stark contrast to the state of initial quality among the Korean-branded vehicles in 1998, when they trailed the industry-leading European autos by an imposing 116 PP100.

The Korean autos now lead the European vehicles by 5 PP100 and the American vehicles by 6 PP100 and trail the Japanese by just 6 PP100.