(FORTUNE Magazine) – Chung Ju-Yung, founder of Korea's Hyundai Group (1990 sales: $20.1 billion), may want to add a postscript to Many Trials, No Failures, his recently released autobiography. Chung, 76, is going into politics and may run for President as head of the new party he has started. First step: to help his candidates win seats in March's parliamentary elections. His chances? According to the polls, South Koreans are unhappy with both the ruling Democratic Liberal Party and its opposition. But conglomerates like Hyundai aren't all that popular either. Many workers say the companies got rich at their expense. As a matter of fact, that autobiography already needs a rewrite. In December, Chung, who has since stepped down as honorary chairman of Korea's third-largest conglomerate, threw in the towel after a skirmish with the government and agreed to pay $182 million he and his family owed for personal and corporate taxes. Born to a poor farmer in what is today North Korea, at 17 Chung walked 120 miles to Seoul to seek his fortune. He worked as a delivery boy for a rice shop and in 1940 opened an auto repair shop, which was later taken over by the state at the insistence of the occupying Japanese forces. He got it back after the war and named it Hyundai Automobile Industries. It turned out knockoff Fords. The first real Hyundais -- the name means ''modern times'' -- rolled off the production line in 1976. In 1991 the company made more than one million autos. All six of Chung's sons work at Hyundai, and his brother, Chung Se-Yung, 63, is now CEO. Despite his 28%, $6.5 billion stake in Hyundai, Chung lives modestly with Pyun Choong Suk, his wife of 53 years. Their seven-room home is made of leftovers from Hyundai's construction division. He is said to wear his suits until threadbare. Many who owe the taxman know that feeling.