2009 Chicago Auto Show: IL Exclusive: Inside Millen's Real Genesis Coupe Drift Car

HUNTINGTON BEACH, California — While the rest of the world is focused on the Hyundai Genesis Coupe Drift showcar sitting on the 2009 Chicago Auto Show floor, Inside Line has gained exclusive access to Rhys Millen Racing (RMR), where the real Genesis Coupe Drift car is being put together deep within a Huntington Beach, California industrial park.

The car currently becoming Millen's primary drift machine is, in fact, the same car Hyundai displayed at the 2008 SEMA Show. It returned to the RMR shop after the trade show and was stripped down and dipped in an alkali bath to wash away any remaining adhesives and all the paint. Then the RMR crew got down to the meticulous business of replacing all the spot welds in the production car structure with long seam welds for additional strength under the stress of professional drifting.

Gone is the base turbo-4 engine in favor of the Genesis Coupe's optional 3.8-liter "Lambda" V6. But of course, even with 306 horsepower available in standard configuration, that wouldn't be enough for drifting. So stroking bumped displacement up to 4.1 liters and Brian Crower's shop in San Diego was given the job of developing a single turbo system for the engine. Built around a Turbonetics wheezer, the badass Lambda should be good for 550 hp and 520-pound feet of peak torque.

Bolted to the V6 is the same HKS five-speed sequential gearbox Millen has been using in his Pontiac Solstice GXP drifter and it in turn feeds a Winters quick-change sprint car rear end. With a quick-change rear end, the team will be able to easily swap gear ratios to tune for a track or run either a limited-slip differential or even a spool.

Though the structure is standard Genesis Coupe reinforced with an eight-point roll cage, Millen thinks the whole assembly may come in 150-200 pounds lighter than the much smaller Solstice. Most of the body panels, including the hood, rear deck lid, roof, fenders, front fascia and side skirts are all built by RMR out of carbon fiber. The standard Genesis Coupe door, for instance, weighs about 68 pounds. On the drift car, that's been brought down to just 8.6 pounds. Hyundai and RMR are aiming for a total of 2,400 pounds.

The basic suspension system on the car ports over to the drift car intact. But the front struts will be KW three-way adjustable units, while RMR is fabricating new rear lower control arms and toe links for more precise chassis tuning. Or course the brakes will be oversize, and there will be separate calipers on the rear discs to be controlled by a rally bar in the cockpit. The Enkei wheels are 18-by-8.5 inches in front and 18-by-9.5 inches in back and will be covered by 225/40R18 front and 265/40R18 rear Toyo Proxes R1R tires. "The Proxes tire is 25 percent better than the Bridgestones," Millen says with some eagerness in his voice.

One of the disadvantages of Millen's old Pontiac GTO drifter was its somewhat archaic trailing arm rear suspension. The five-link system used in the Genesis Coupe should be more supple and responsive to tuning. What Millen says he's hoping for is a car with the dynamics and angles of his old GTO, combined with the power and agility of his Solstice.

At the moment, however, all that's in the shop at RMR is an unpainted shell slowly being assembled into a real competition machine. It's just a start, but the craftsmanship is already impressive, and it's a good start for what Millen hopes will be a long relationship with Hyundai.

"I hope it's just the start and we can diversify beyond drifting," Millen said. "I want to build on my relationship with Hyundai to start a parts program with dealers, sort of like what Roush and Saleen did with the Mustang, for this new Genesis Coupe. I want to build exhaust systems, body pieces and even start a signature series with number plates."

Any race team makes a big bet when it moves over to a new racecar. But there's more than a drifting program riding on this Genesis Coupe's broad, carbon-fiber shoulders when it debuts at Long Beach this April.

After Millen lost his GM and Bridgestone backing last year, he got good news from Hyundai.

"Hyundai asked us to build a car for the SEMA show. That's all it was, just a showcar for SEMA." Using a pre-production Genesis Coupe as a base, what RMR built for SEMA was a blue and silver beast with a radical nose, huge rear wing and engorged fenders — all done in carbon fiber. Running on a set of Bridgestone Potenza racing slicks, the "Art of Speed" showcar looked ready to conquer most of the Earth's land mass. But the turbocharged four-cylinder engine was only lightly modified, and the suspension only slightly tweaked with KW coil-over shocks.

"That car got us a lot of positive press," says Millen. "Step two came with doing Hyundai's Super Bowl commercial. We got a lot of positive press with that and huge publicity."

All that adoring press led naturally to Millen proposing that the Genesis Coupe become his drift car for the 2009 series. And considering the serendipitous timing of Millen's involvement with Hyundai, it seemed a natural. By the beginning of 2009, Millen and Hyundai were in serious talks. By the middle of February, the deal was done.

Inside Line says: While Chicago show-goers are admiring the drifting showcar, the RMR team is working steadily on a real Genesis Coupe drifter that should be competitive out of the box. — John Pearley Huffman, Correspondent

Video: Watch the RMR Hyundai Genesis Coupe Drifter in action.