New Auto Maker in S. Korea Plans O.C. Design Center : Manufacturing: Samsung Motors will have 45 stylists working by next year toward production in next decade.

HUNTINGTON BEACH —  Fledgling South Korean car company Samsung Motors Inc. has acquired a vehicle design center in Huntington Beach and plans to have at least 45 stylists working there by next year.

Samsung, which plans to launch U.S. auto sales shortly after the end of the decade, and Daewoo Motors, which intends to start selling here in 1997, would join two other South Korean car makers, Hyundai and Kia, in the North American market.

Both Hyundai and Kia have established U.S. headquarters in Orange County, and industry specialists say it is likely the other two will join them in this area.

Samsung’s decision to set up its design studio in Huntington Beach underscores the likelihood that the company’s executive offices will be nearby, said George Peterson, chairman of Santa Ana automotive market consulting firm AutoPacific Group.

Samsung Motors, part of the Samsung Group industrial conglomerate, was formed in March to develop autos for the Korean and overseas markets.

The company has signed a development pact with Japan’s Nissan Motors Corp. and has acquired the rights to use the present-day Nissan Maxima platform as the base for a Samsung-produced auto to be built in Korea and sold in the United States.

To set up its U.S. design studio, Samsung Motors late last week acquired the Huntington Beach facilities of International Automotive Design West Coast Inc. from its British owner, Mayflower Group.

Samsung said there are 30 design, engineering and modeling specialists at the former IAD facility and that it plans to add 15 specialists during 1996.

Most overseas car makers have U.S. design studios in order to bring North American tastes into the styling of vehicles destined for sale in this country. Southern California is where most of them are located and, with the addition of Samsung, Orange County is home to 9 of the 18 foreign and domestic auto design studios that occupy a styling corridor stretching from Simi Valley to La Jolla.

Samsung has said that it intends to invest $20 million in its U.S. design institute by the end of the decade.

Kia Motors America is in Irvine and Hyundai Motor America in Fountain Valley, said AutoPacific’s Peterson.

In addition, there is a large Korean community in Orange County that would provide social and cultural underpinnings for newcomers in the companies’ executive ranks, he said.