If you ever wanted to know what three quarters of a billion dollars looks like, take a gander at the 2009 Hyundai Genesis.

That’s how much the Korean automaker spent developing its first luxury car for the American market, and it can be yours for the low, low price of $33,000.

If that sounds like a lot to you for a Hyundai, join the club. The perennial value brand has its work cut out for it convincing buyers that it can seriously be considered an alternative to the luxury offerings from Japan and Germany, not to mention Detroit, even at a bargain price.

After spending a day driving several models of the car on the winding roads paralleling the Hudson River in New York City’s northern suburbs, I’ll venture to guess that getting high-end shoppers in the doors of its dealerships will be the second hardest challenge Hyundai has ahead of it.

Keeping the Genesis in stock will be the really tough part.

At the press drive introduction, Hyundai made no excuses for the Genesis, nor did they need to. Unlike some past offerings from the brand, there is very little “you get what you pay for” about the car. It is just plain good.

The Genesis is a large vehicle, with exterior dimensions that fall between most mid- and full-size sedans. Considering it’s priced like a compact, that’s an achievement unto itself. The exterior – an amalgam of Mercedes, Lexus and BMW themes – breaks no new ground, but there is also nothing about it that is wrong. The design is clean and well-proportioned without any notable missteps, which is more than many of the cars it will compete against it can say.

The grille was the last feature finalized, and what Hyundai went with kind of looks like a barista drew an S-Class grille with chocolate sauce on the top of a cappuccino, then ran a coffee stirrer down the center.

The only thing missing is a Hyundai logo, but that is intentional. The company is trying to establish Genesis as a sort of pseudo-luxury brand without going to the trouble and expense of starting a separate sales channel like the Japanese did with Acura, Infiniti and Lexus. It probably isn’t special enough to hang all of that on to it, but it will do the trick for now, and is definitely more attractive than your standard Hyundai front end.

One of those fancy proximity keys unlocks the door as you approach, and there’s a button on the dash to start the engine with. Genesis is available with either V-6 or a V-8, and you won’t find yourself wanting much with either. The six cylinder churns 290 horsepower through the rear wheels and manages 27 mpg on the highway, which is very good for a car of this size with that much power. Give the gas pedal a nice prod and you’ll feel a strong shove into the seat.

Do that with the eight cylinder and you might end up in the back row. The 375 horsepower is all you need to know about it, but a 25 mpg highway rating is a nice surprise, and as much as you’ll find in just about any car it competes with. Starting price for a Genesis with the big motor is just $38,000.

Always watching out for your bottom line, Hyundai makes a point to tell you that while premium gasoline is recommended for the V-8, it’ll run just fine on regular. In fact, they are the only automaker I know that gives you the horsepower rating for the lesser grade fuel, and at 368 horsepower, you might as well save the money.

Underway you’ll notice something is missing that is found in most of its sister products. Noise. Hyundai says the Genesis is as quiet as a BMW 750i or Lexus LS460, automobiles that cost twice as much. I can’t vouch for that claim, but it is astonishingly quiet inside. Even under full throttle you hear little more than a murmur from the engine bay, virtually no tire roar and just a whisper of wind through the laminated glass.

Hyundai showed us diagrams of all the sound insulation it stuffed into the car, and I doubt that Bob Villa could have done more with your chilly garage.

The interior of the Genesis is anything but cold, with leather that could be straight from an Infiniti, and lots of glossy real wood that looks the part. There’s some plastic and vinyl, but it’s all soft to the touch, even the stuff way down low on the transmission tunnel, where it’s easy to cheap out with the hard stuff.

The seats are more comfortable than sporting, and a little too flat when the roads start to turn. A shame because with a suspension that automatically adapts to the way you drive, the car can put on a pretty good show, even if it doesn’t go out of its way to encourage that kind of driving.

The shape of the dashboard is Mercedes channeled through Lexus, with a big bulge in the center that houses the multimedia system. On V-8 models, you can opt for a technology package that has navigation with live traffic and a 17-speaker stereo designed by Lexicon, the same company that provides the audio setup for the Rolls Royce Phantom.

With 7.1 surround sound, it is as good as any, and much better than even the 14-speaker system that is also available. You can control most of the functions with a console mounted dial, but there are auxiliary controls scattered about for more immediate adjustments like volume.

The screen is a good size, with up to date graphics, but its a little high on the dashboard and not shaded well, the top half of it often disappearing in direct sunlight just as you are approaching the next right turn.

If it weren’t for the humdrum instrument panel and a steering wheel with too many large square buttons on it, from the driver’s seat you’d have a hard time telling the difference between the Genesis and a dozen cars that cost much more than it does. There’s also a lot of room: as much interior space as a Mercedes S-Class. Much of that must go to headroom, though, because space for legs doesn’t quite top the charts.

That’s not to say back seat passengers will complain. I was easily able to fit behind the driver’s seat, even with it adjusted to fit my 6-foot-1 frame. Unfortunately the cars that Hyundai benchmarked for rear seat comfort don’t seem to have considered hydration very important. The only two cupholders are in the fold-down armrest, which means if three people are back there, they will all need free hands for their Diet Cokes. A lot of carmakers are guilty of this oversight, but that doesn’t mean Hyundai gets a pass.

It doesn’t need one on fit and finish. All of the parts go together like a jigsaw puzzle, with every line and seam matching up perfectly, and there wasn’t a rattle or hum to be heard in any of the cars that I drove. Cruising through the ritzy towns that straddle Route 9 through Westchester County, I felt right at home, and didn’t want for anything.

Sure, if a BMW M5 came along I’d be toast, but only if I were foolish enough to engage him in battle. According to Hyundai, Genesis buyers are mostly male, mostly married, with a little less than half making more than $100,000. These are not hoons looking for trouble. They are people who used to own Sonatas and Azeras. If they were interested in 0 to 60 mph times, they would’ve been driving a different brand and would have never checked out the Genesis in the first place.

Hyundai should have little trouble finding the 20,000 or so of these buyers they’re figuring on for the first year, though they are ready to build a lot more than that if needed.

Give them credit for not getting ahead of themselves, but they may want to think about adding a few shifts at the plant.

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2009 HYUNDAI GENESIS

Base Price: $33,000 (V-6)/$38,000 (V-8)

Type: Front-engine, rear-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan

Engine: 3.8L V-6/4.6L V-8

Power: 290 hp, 268 lb-ft torque/375 hp, 333 lb-ft torque

Transmission: 6-speed automatic

MPG: 27/18 (V-6) 25/17 (V-8)

By Gary Gastelu

While you were out jockin’ M-B’s, Lexus’s and BMW’s, a little Korean company called Hyundai was creepin’ on the come up. Bet you didn’t know they’re now the 7th best selling automotive brand in the U.S., did you? Turns out a lot of Americans love low priced cars–who knew?

To celebrate, the company best known for econo-boxes is looking to go head to head with the big boys by introducing their new rear-wheel drive Genesis platform. Their first Genesis offering touching down in the states will be the amazingly priced 4.6 and 3.8 Sedan, followed later by the coupe. Hyundai threw Complex the keys and we took this recession special for a ride. Read the full review and check out a gallery below.

PRICE: $37,250

SPECS:
Engine: 375hp, 4.6L V8
MPG: 17 city/25 mpg

RIDE: Hyundai may bill the Genesis as a luxury sport sedan, but once behind the wheel there wasn’t much sportiness to be found. Although the peppy V8 made it easy to go up against any other big body sedan on the road not rocking an “AMG” or “M” badge, whipping it through corners wasn’t very confidence inspiring. The steering was a little unresponsive and numb. But that’s not what the Genesis was made for. If you wanna get your Nurburg’ on, get a sports car. The Genesis aspires to be more luxe than sport. Cruising at any speed feels like you’re floating. Hop in the back and you might think you were in something with a six figure price tag. All that’s missing are curtains. And the Cristal.

INTERIOR: Sleek and sophisticated. Hyundai realized the real indicator of a luxury car is the interior and made sure to pay extra attention to detail, and for the most part they succeeded in providing a high class experience. The leather and wood grain that wrap the steering wheel and dash felt as high grade as any other luxury brand. But the aluminum looking panel around the shifter and entertainment system felt cheap, and an analog clock would have been a better fit than the bargain basement digital joint they put in there.

AUDIO: Our model had the Technology package with a 40 gig hard drive, navigation system, and the Lexicon surround system with 17 speakers and 11 channel digital external amplifier, that knocked pretty well. A little more bass would have been perfect. The iDrive-esque controller worked well too. The tech package is well-rounded and you don’t need to study the instruction manual to use it.

WHIP APPEAL: Take the Hyundai badges off of this and it could be anything from a Lexus to a Mercedes. We’d rather push this than a Chrysler 300 or even a BMW 3 series. Driving it around, you definitely don’t feel like you’re in a Hyundai, and most people on the street didn’t know it either until they get closer.

ONE MORE THING: Of course, for the low-low price tag, somethings are missing. While most luxury brands are implementing next generation safety features, Hyundai just rocks with traction control. The heated and cooled seats are pretty dope and lets not forget Hyundai’s 10 year/100,000 warranty.

SUMMARY: The Genesis accomplishes a lot with a little. There are some hiccups, but for those looking for an entry luxury car, this is it. Rear wheel drive, luxe interior, powerful engine, good looks. It’s all there.

RATING: 4/5

Source: Complex.com

New cover, familiar text: The new book of Genesis: Not exactly a page turner, but lots of content.

Before we buckle up, we must first invoke a temporary vocabulary-restraining order: At no time will the term luxury sports sedan be used to describe this car. At least not by us. Luxury, yes, and sedan, obviously. But sports, nope, sorry, we’re putting that appellation on hold.

If you’ve already checked the specifications, you may wonder why we post the proviso. The Genesis looks pretty formidable on paper, particularly with the optional 4.6-liter V-8 engine, and a lot of people in the Hyundai organization think their new car measures up pretty well against sporting stalwarts from BMW, Mercedes, and Audi. A clue to their conviction can be seen in the Genesis promotional literature, which is sprinkled with “sports sedan” references.

There’s no question that, in general, Hyundai’s development team checked the right boxes for their ambitious leap to this high-stakes, high-profit game. However, this isn’t really a huge surprise because, after all, they had a script, written by Toyota for the development of the 1989 Lexus LS400. So the formula is one that’s now familiar: respectable performance, decent quality, and lots of features wrapped in attractive sheetmetal at an even more attractive price.

That last–pricing–has been the key to Hyundai’s remarkable progress since it made its first appearance in the U.S. market in 1985 with the Excel, which was loosely related to the Mitsubishi Mirage and also sold as the Mitsubishi Precis. With a 0-to-60-mph time of 16.3 seconds, our test crew called the Excel “faster than speeding molasses,” [C/D, March 1986]. But thanks to lower Korean labor costs, Hyundai was able to price the Excel considerably below competing small cars.

The Genesis, obviously, shares only a brand name with that primitive ’80s Excel, but the marketing theory is similar. Pricing for this new luxo four-door starts at $33,000, including the $750 destination charge. That’s for the 290-hp, 3.8-liter V-6 version. The 375-hp, 4.6-liter V-8 adds $5000 to the base price–$58.82 per pony. Not all that much, really, when you consider the cars with V-8 power that Hyundai seeks to usurp. The base price for a BMW 550i is $59,625, and the least expensive 5-series, the 528i, starts at $45,425.

Others: Audi A6 4.2, from $57,075; Infiniti M45, from $51,065; Lexus GS460, from $53,785; Mercedes E550, from $60,575. (We should add that with the exception of the Genesis, these are 2008 prices.)

Here’s what you get for your 38-grand base price. In addition to the V-8 and ZF six-speed automatic (the 3.8-liter V-6 is mated to an Aisin B600 six-speed auto), the luxury inventory includes a power tilt/slide sunroof; two-tone leather upholstery and upper dash, stylishly stitched; tasteful wood trim; heated power front seats; a 15-speaker sound system; electroluminescent instruments; Bluetooth hands-free phone connectivity; dual-zone automatic climate control; memory presets for seat position and steering column (power adjustable for rake and reach); a power rear sunshade; and cruise control (Hyundai will add an adaptive feature later).

Our test car had the only option group offered, the $4000 Technology package: 17-speaker audio with an in-dash six-DVD changer, XM satellite radio, an iDrive-style control that’s actually user-friendly, a nav system, HID headlamps, a backup warning camera, driver’s seat cooling, and front and rear park-assist sensors.

You get the idea–lots of the goodies you’d expect of a luxury car, in a handsomely executed interior. Make that handsome and exceptionally roomy. This is a big car by the standards of the class to which it aspires–bigger than any of its target competitors, with interior volume that’s more consistent with cars one size up the scale. Lots of trunk, too–16 cubic feet.

Hyundai has taken pains to make sure the Genesis is as quiet as it is roomy–another page from the Lexus playbook. At a 70-mph cruise, the needle on our sound meter once quivered just below 69 dBA, but we wound up with an average of 70–good but not exceptional. Noise suppression is fine, of course, but how silent should it be? We think a little basso profundo in the exhaust note would enhance the driving experience. To which we’ll return shortly.

Exterior design is obviously critical to a company attempting to invade the prestige ranks, and here again it looks as though Hyundai has followed the Lexus script. Created to invade German turf, the original LS400 was a shameless Mercedes derivative that worked. The Genesis can be perceived as derivative, too, but pinpointing the origin of the derivations provokes debate. Mercedes? BMW? Lexus? The S-class-style grille is eye-catching, and the short front overhang suggests athleticism, but the overall look is a little generic.

BY TONY SWAN
Car and Driver

Hyundai undercuts Lexus, Infiniti and Mercedes with a luxury car that’ll give car buyers another reason to forget the Korean carmaker’s checkered past

The world has turned upside-down. The US government is the hottest ticket on Wall Street, Cadillac builds European sports sedans, Saab markets SUVs, and now Hyundai makes a $42,000 luxury car. Someone e-mail the Bizarro Justice League, stat.

The 2009 Hyundai Genesis has been a long time coming for the South Korean automaker. Years ago, Hyundai introduced to the American market an ignoble range of economy cars that, unadjusted for inflation, cost the equivalent of pocket lint. It’s a different company now. To mangle a Pink Floyd lyric, 20 odd years may have gotten behind Hyundai Motor America, but it didn’t miss the starting gun.

As it enters a new phase of maturity, Hyundai’s digging in for a fight where it hasn’t before (in the US): luxury sedans. The new Genesis seems a million years from the long-discontinued Excel, a car so awful ConsumerGuide once scored it a 3 out of 10 for materials. These days, according to J.D. Power & Associates, Hyundai’s up there with Acura, Audi and Volvo in overall quality. Say the word Excel to a Hyundai executive now, and you’re more likely to get a spreadsheet than a set of keys.

For the past half-decade, industry watchers have seen Hyundai edging its product line upmarket. In 2004 it launched the Azera, a front-wheel-drive, midsize sedan with shades of Buick. In 2006 it introduced the Veracruz crossover SUV, aimed squarely at the pricier Lexus RX300. This year, the rear-drive Genesis sedan arrives in dealerships. Next year, it’ll be a sports coupe producing 300 horsepower. Maybe after that we’ll see a Hyundai that takes off vertically like a Harrier jet. Who knows.

Not quite what you’d call design-forward, the Genesis is attractive in a familiar way, kind of like actress Julie Bowen (Google, if you must). Midway between the Mercedes S-Class and Infiniti M in appearance, the Genesis’s most distinctive bit is that louvered grille, whose wing-like slats assign a curious organic character to the fascia. Inside, the Genesis offers spacial volume equal to that of a Mercedes S-Class. Interior trimmings are tasteful and corporately austere compared to Lexus’s million-button march.

Where the ancient Excel was as technologically advanced as a Bundt pan, the Genesis is a modern luxury car, riding on a new, rear-drive chassis platform. The allocation of drive wheels to the back immediately applies that unmistakable feel of being pushed, not pulled, distinctive of a true executive car. Suspension tuning tends toward the floaty side of the luxury spectrum, closer to the American and Japanese ideal, rather than that hard-soft meatiness characteristic of German sedans. That’s not to say the Genesis is a flaccid ride–it isn’t, quite. The multilink front and rear suspension combines with a shock-absorber system from ZF Sachs called amplitude-selective damping, which the Genesis shares with the Mercedes C-Class. The all-hydraulic system decreases damping over minor “stimulations” like road imperfections, but increases damping during major loading, as in hard cornering. As a result the 4,000-pound sedan keeps fairly flat-ish in corners while retaining composure over rough roadways.

The electro-hydraulic steering is responsive and offers decent feedback, especially in the V6 model. That car uses a slightly different steering setup than the V8 model, whose steering feels overly processed by comparison. Brakes are an exercise in directness and offer plenty of stopping power for all that weight.

Buyers of the entry-level Genesis model are eligible for the company’s smooth 3.8-liter Lambda V6, producing 290-horsepower, although the company expects 20 percent of buyers to opt for Hyundai’s 4.6-liter Tau V8. The V8, a requirement in the luxury segment, cost Hyundai $260 million to develop and produces a substantial 375 horsepower on premium fuel (368 on regular). Each engine links up with a separate six-speed automatic transmission, the V6’s from Aisin, and the V8’s from ZF. Both serve up- and downshifts as smoothly as warm sour-cream frosting. Maybe not exactly that, but we’ve gone a few sentences without inelegant hyperbole, so there you go.

But luxury cars are about the extra stuff you get, and the Genesis comes with the most requested kit. The Genesis 3.8 V6–starting at $33,000 with $750 freight charge–comes with a raft of expected accouterments: automatic headlights, cruise control, power front seats–eight-way driver and four-way passenger; power tilt and telescoping steering wheel; dual-zone climate control; sunroof; seven-speaker audio system with CD player, XM satellite radio and iPod and auxiliary input jacks; leather; Bluetooth capability; heated front seats, and 17-inch alloys. The Genesis 3.8 turns in EPA mileage figures of 18 mpg city, 27 mpg highway.

The Genesis 4.6 V8–starting at $38,000 with $750 freight charge–adds rain-sensing wipers with auto-defogger windshield; eight-way power passenger seat and driver memory settings; a wood and leather interior trim package; auto-dimming rear view mirror, 15-speaker Lexicon audio system with six-disc CD changer (shared with the Rolls Royce Phantom), power rear sunshade, 18-inch alloys and chrome exterior accents. The Genesis 4.6 is EPA rated at 17 mpg city, 25 mpg highway.

Buyers of the V6 can opt for the same features as the V8 by optioning the Premium Package. A Technology Package offered on both models includes cooled driver’s seat; adaptive headlights with auto leveling; front and rear park assist, Lexicon 17-speaker audio system, 6-disc in-dash DVD changer navigation system, XM NavTraffic real-time traffic service; multimedia controller, and a backup camera.

Although brand-conscious buyers will likely steer clear of the Hyundai lot for now, the economic woes of late may work in the company’s favor, bringing in new buyers looking to scale back their free-spending ways. And of course, any Wall Streeter whose paycheck is now signed by Uncle Sam should get a thumbs-up from We the People if they ditch their German iron and show up at work in one.