When we initially caught wind that Hyundai had tapped a handful of tuners and magazines to customize the Genesis sedan for SEMA, we were prepared for some ungainly and wholly ridiculous offerings. Thankfully, the trio of coupes look promising, and even though the teased and spied RKSport sedan appears to take the Genesis to its illogical extreme, we've got two more to go before show time and one comes courtesy of the crew at RIDES. Looking to build off the Genesis sedan's strong points, the RIDES team has created a roving office with all the technological amenities your 21st century man-on-the-move would need. Three Macs are installed inside – two Mac Minis and a one MacBook Air – allowing back-seat slaves to the interwebs (that would be us) to troll the 'Net through a pair of tray-mounted wireless keyboards, 8.4-inch VGA headrest monitors and a WiFi connection. Included inside is an iPhone 3G and iPod touch, along with a Farenheit DVD player, Genesis amps, Morel Hybrid Ovation speakers and two 12-inch sub-woofers. In the unlikely event that you're stranded on the roadside, pop the trunk and you're greeted by a 20-inch Apple Cinema Display with keyboard and mouse mounted on a motorized tray. If the tech isn't enough, the back seats are swathed in suede upholstery, while the exterior benefits from custom 22-inch MHT three-piece wheels, an Extreme Dimensions body kit, custom bumper, lowered suspension, smoked taillights and quad-tip exhaust.
There are six modded Genesis' planned for SEMA: three coupes, three sedans. The coupes have been worked over by Street Concepts, HKS, and Rhys Millen. A rendering of the first tricked-out Genesis sedan from RKSport has rumbled onto the page, and it looks less like competition for the 5 Series than it does a challenger to the Death Star. The Platinum Silver sedan will wear carbon fiber accessories and a couple of spoilers as it hunkers on its oversized TSW wheels. RKSport's take on this car is to raise the performance stakes, and it's going to have Hyundai's help doing it. The whipped cream on the sunday will be a K&N air intake, Magnaflow exhaust, Eibach springs, Baer brakes, and a body kit. The sunday itself consists of performance upgrades that Hyundai is giving to the car's Tau V8 engine. The Korean automaker is hush-hush on those changes, but they're probably good for a bump in the numbers in all the right places. And since you can't drive the cars at SEMA, they'll probably look and sound pretty good, too.
Hyundai's first foray into the world of rear-wheel-drive needs to be a success in order to justify the development, manufacturing and launching costs. Hyundai's vice president for product development, John Krafcik, told reports that the automaker expects to sell 50,000 Genesis models annually in the U.S. – 20,000 sedans and 30,000 coupes. But the Genesis is only part of Hyundai's image makeover. The Korean manufacturer intends to launch its first hybrid model by 2010, equipped with a next generation lithium-ion battery pack. According to Krafcik, "Our first U.S. hybrid is going to be the Sonata," however, Hyundai has no plans to offer the new sedan with a plug-in option. That's a strategy that's served Toyota well, and Hyundai is clearly trying to follow in the Japanese juggernaut's footsteps.
The story of what's underneath -- and inside -- the Hyundai Genesis is central to the story of the car and what Hyundai's trying to do with it. The body-in-white of the Genesis has a larger total body area than the Lexus LS460 and Mercedes S-Class. Yet ten years ago, if we had asked you which carmaker would create a rear-wheel-drive V8 sedan with a body structure that is larger, yet stiffer and lighter than the 5-Series or E-Class, would you have guessed it would be Hyundai?
Of course, you probably wouldn't have guessed that BMW would be selling all the MINIs it could make, or that Alfa Romeo would sell out a run of $200K supercars. The lesson: the games -- plural -- have changed for everyone. Follow the jump to find out how the Genesis is the spearhead of change for Hyundai and, if Hyundai gets its wish, the entire luxury segment.
Product placement inundates television imagery, from the blatantly branded soda tumblers on American Idol to more subtle appearances like what car Jack Bauer drivers. Looking to boost the profile of its new Genesis top-level sedan, Hyundai has secured the services of Davie Brown Entertainment, responsible for the masterful remake-a-palooza of the MINI in The Italian Job. Hyundais have been in film and television before, but the automaker is looking for more visible roles to help quietly promote its entry into Lexus territory. Pay-for-play deals will likely see the Genesis in movies where you'd see a 7 series BMW, Mercedes S-Class or a Lexus LS. Unfortunately, films for fall release that would coincide with the launch of the car have long wrapped production, so television is seen as the way to get a quick fix for Hyundai. Davie Brown has already had the car at several sets where it's been well received. When your favorite shows return after their summer hiatus, keep your eyes peeled for the Genesis. ER had a blatant endorsement of the Chrysler 300 when it first bowed, culminating in a street race and a dunk in the water, so we wonder what they could do with the Genesis?
Autoblog recently spent time in Korea driving pre-production versions of the new Hyundai Genesis. This is the car that, according to Hyundai, will usher in a new era of luxury. Them's big words, and we only got a limited amount of time to figure out how true -- or not -- they were. But the main thing you need to know about the Genesis is this: unless they pull a bait and switch on the price range they mentioned, the car will be worth every penny Hyundai charges.
The parking lot statistics are these: the Genesis is a big car with a fair bit of horsepower. The car is longer, wider, and has a longer wheelbase than the BMW 530i, Mercedes E350, and Lexus ES350. It's also good looking -- massive and curved without being bulbous -- although it's not designed to be controversial or, frankly, beyond the grille, that memorable. All you'll be left with a few hours later is, probably, "It was a good looking car." That is not a bad thing, since most people wouldn't remember exactly what an ES350 looks like, either, and this slice of the mass-market segment is not where you're trying to compete with Gaudi or Scaglietti... or Bangle. But if you're really worried about the price of gas, you'll be happy to know it also has a better Cd than any of those other cars, too.
Under the hood you get your choice of a 4.6-liter V8 or 3.8-liter V6. The bigger lump corrals 375 horses when sipping premium, and 368 with regular gas. Torque numbers are 333 lb.-ft. and 324 with premium and regular, respectively. Those numbers put it in the mix of luxury offerings from Infiniti, BMW, and Mercedes, the Lexus GS460, along with the Chrysler 300C, and Pontiac G8, with slightly more horsepower than all but the E550, and slightly less torque than any of them. Hyundai's first in-house V8 also gets high-zoot tech like a two-step variable induction system and dual continuously variable valve timing. The 3.8-liter Lambda V6 gets 270 hp and twists 233 lb.-ft., which keeps it in good company as well. It also provided quite the surprise when we got behind the wheel, but we'll get to that in a moment. Through the six-speed automatic transmission, your mileage will be 17/25 in the V8, and 18/27 in the V6.
The Super Bowl is this Sunday, and that means we get to see the best commercials that money can buy, and perhaps some football, as well. Hyundai was unsure whether it wanted to spend $2.5m a pop for two :30 spots (a voice over by the Dude doesn't come cheap), but in the end the South Korean automaker decided the Genesis sedan was a big-time product, and it deserved a spot on the world's biggest stage. We loaded both of Hyundai's ads after the jump, and we like what we see.
Hyundai deliberately shied away from any sort of pizazz or funny gimmicks, instead focusing on the virtues of its 375-hp rear-wheel-drive sedan. The silver Genesis on center stage, which is actually the Korean market model (note the winged "Genesis" hood badge and home-market grille), looks great in motion, and Hyundai didn't waste any time needling the luxury car competition. The two spots reference the Genesis having 7-Series and S-Class size with a price tag closer to that of the 3-Series or C-Class. Both spots knock the fact that most Super Bowl ads are about entertainment instead of great products, and both :30 ads drive home the point that Hyundai has a potential game-changer on its hands. We're not advertising experts, but we'd consider this $5m well spent.
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