Growing luxury brand challenges the establishment

2 weeks ago 59

Would you thrust a luxury car to beryllium associated with a celebrated brand, savour the champion imaginable driving experience, oregon due to the fact that you privation to beryllium pampered?

If it’s the latter, Genesis should beryllium connected your buying list.

Though it can’t vie with the likes of BMW, Mercedes oregon Porsche for badge recognition, the large Euro brands can’t travel adjacent to matching the generous features database of the Genesis GV80.

The latest mentation of the GV80 is simply a bold determination by Hyundai’s luxury arm.

The marque has dropped four-cylinder and diesel variants from the scope to absorption connected a fully-loaded V6 petrol mentation and a caller coupe-like assemblage style.

Priced from astir $147,000 drive-away, the Genesis GV80 Coupe is disposable successful a azygous specification powered by a 279kW/530Nm twin-turbo V6 engine.

Those are satisfactory numbers for a premium SUV, returning effortless powerfulness without the existent wow origin of high-performance machines.

The Genesis is thirsty, though, requiring 11.7L/100km of premium unleaded, though your substance bills volition beryllium offset by 5 years of escaped servicing.

This is not a inexpensive car, but it does undercut cardinal rivals specified arsenic the BMW X6 (about $157,000 drive-away and 280kW of power), Porsche Cayenne Coupe ($159,000 and 260kW) and Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe ($170,000 and 280kW) portion delivering akin performance.

As with those rivals, the Genesis hopes to crook heads with a coupe-like silhouette, tremendous 22-inch wheels and a bold chrome grille.

The interior makes a beardown content acknowledgment to an tremendous 27-inch OLED show stretching crossed the dashboard. The show looks brilliant, peculiarly erstwhile utilized successful an “augmented reality” mode that combines a video provender of the roadworthy up with navigation accusation connected which lane to usage oregon erstwhile to turn.

A flat-bottomed steering instrumentality and c fibre trim suggest the GV80 is sportier than your mean SUV, though sofa-like massage chairs with 18-way physics accommodation bespeak its existent priority.

Those chairs tin present subtle movements to forestall assemblage stiffness during a agelong drive.

They’re heated, of course. So are the armrests, sparing elbows the fearfulness of chilly leather connected a wintertime morning.

Speaking of which, you tin person the seats trimmed successful an awesome array of colours – we similar the oddball operation of smoky greenish with vanilla beige, accompanied by heavy reddish seatbelts, a crystalline cogwheel selector and multi-coloured ambient lighting.

We don’t person abstraction to database each of the car’s features here. Porsche customers request to walk an other $30,000 connected optional features to lucifer the Genesis’ modular kit.

There are clever touches everyplace you look, from the Michelin tyres with peculiar insulation to minimise roadworthy noise, to the centre console with a UV-C radiation lamp that kills germs connected your keys and phone.

It has each the information cogwheel you could anticipation for, including precocious operator assistance tech that helps easiness the load of driving successful stop-start traffic.

But determination are a fewer features that are missing, including the blase aerial suspension offered by rivals.

The GV80 makes bash with accepted alloy springs accompanied by multi-mode shocks tuned for comfortableness – truthful overmuch truthful that the car tin make a heaving, waterbed-like sensation from clip to time.

It misses retired connected rear-wheel steering that reduces the turning ellipse of luxury cars, and progressive anti-roll bars that forestall dense cars leaning implicit portion cornering.

All of this means it’s not a peculiarly engaging car to drive. You consciousness each of its 2.2-tonne wide successful choky turns, and you mightiness consciousness unsettled from clip to clip implicit lumpy roadworthy surfaces.

A much focused “Magma” mentation promises to benignant that out, giving Genesis an reply to the likes of Mercedes-AMG and BMW’s M Division.

VERDICT

Three stars

This won’t beryllium the prime for radical who genuinely emotion driving, oregon privation to impressment friends with a flashy badge. But folks who admit luxurious tech and materials volition beryllium thrilled with the Genesis GV80 Coupe.

GENESIS GV80 COUPE

PRICE $147,000 drive-away

ENGINE 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6, 279kW and 530Nm

WARRANTY/SERVICE 5-yr/unlimited km, 5-yr escaped servicing

SAFETY 10 airbags, car exigency braking, progressive cruise control, lane support assist, unsighted spot monitoring, rear transverse postulation alert

THIRST 11.7L/100km

BOOT 644 litres

SPARE Repair kit

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