CarBrandLogos archive · Genesis · 2008

GenesisHyundai Genesis

A rear-drive luxury saloon from a company nobody expected to build one.

Photo: Kevauto · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Genesis history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Genesis Hyundai Genesis, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Hyundai's plan was to build a car good enough to embarrass its price and let the badge catch up later. The Genesis of 2008 was a rear-wheel-drive executive saloon on an all-new platform, with a V6 and a Tau V8 that Hyundai had engineered from scratch, aimed squarely at the entry-level German saloons and undercutting them substantially.

09 Hyundai Genesis · IFCAR · Public domain

Design and engineering

It worked better than the industry expected. The Genesis was named North American Car of the Year for 2009, the first Korean car to take the award, and reviewers who had come to sneer found a quiet, well-built car whose only real weakness was the absence of any prestige to attach to it.

2010 Hyundai Genesis IIHS · Brady Holt · CC BY 3.0

2012 Hyundai Genesis R-Spec -- 10-19-2011

In production

That absence was the whole lesson. Hyundai learned that engineering alone could not sell a car at that price with a Hyundai badge on the boot, and the response was to create a separate marque. When the second generation arrived, the car was renamed the Genesis G80 and the name became a brand in its own right. All-wheel drive was offered alongside rear-wheel drive, and a Genesis Coupe shared the name but almost nothing else.

2012 Hyundai Genesis R-Spec -- 10-19-2011 · IFCAR · Public domain

At a glance