The Hyundai Genesis luxury sedan is the car every other manufacturer feared Hyundai was capable of building. It's big, luxurious, comprehensively equipped, a pleasure to drive, built like a brick of beryllium and compared to its competition, relatively affordable. It's as if Hyundai took a look at the automotive world and decided to leap over every other manufacturer to the front in one fell swoop. What the Hyundai Genesis has done is strike fear into the hearts of auto executives around the world.
There's no getting around the fact that the Hyundai Genesis lacks any sort of luxury heritage. About as close as Hyundai had ever come to building a luxury machine previously was the thoroughly awkward Dynasty introduced for 1996. Built in South Korea, it was sold there as an executive car and sparsely marketed in a few other countries. The V6-powered Dynasty was a front-driver that couldn't have looked goofier or been more boring to drive. By 2003 it had run its course and Hyundai stopped production. It's not a car that remotely resembled the Hyundai Genesis that was to come.
In North America, the biggest Hyundai to appear before the Hyundai Genesis was the XG300 and its successor the XG350. Launched in 2001, the front-drive XG300 was relatively large and dynamically uninteresting, originally powered by a 3.0-liter V6 that engine grew to 3.5 liters during 2002; the name was changed to reflect the displacement increase. As well-equipped and well-built as the XG350 was, it was still at least a generation behind the Japanese competition in detail execution, handling and drivetrain sophistication. But it hinted at what the Hyundai Genesis would be.
Introduced during 2008 as a 2009 model, the Hyundai Genesis was initially offered with either a 3.8-liter V6 or 4.6-liter V8 under its hood driving the rear wheels. While much of its decoration was standard for the class, it featured some unique elements like leather detailing on the dash that was at least different from the usual fake wood. What was impressive about the Hyundai Genesis wasn't its uniqueness, however; it's how competently it competed against established, iconic luxury competition.
