Korean Revolution

As featured in The CEO Magazine For more info visit theceomagazine.com

HYUNDAI’S NEW LUXURY BRAND, GENESIS, AIMS TO DISRUPT THE LUXURY AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR.

WORDS RODERICK EIME

It’s the marketing strategy they teach at university. Create a breakaway brand with a new set of core values to capture a market unreachable with the current brand. The template for this is well established since Toyota’s launch of Lexus in 1989.

The premise being that, while the parent brands enjoyed solid respect for reliability and value, they did not portray luxury and aspiration in sufficient quantity to challenge the big European brands such as BMW or Mercedes-Benz.

So perhaps today we can call Hyundai Korea’s Toyota? After all, it is now the fifth-largest car manufacturer in the world (and the third highest-selling brand in Australia) and has rapidly developed an international profile with modern, cosmopolitan styling and superior quality control thanks to imported European talent such as stellar German designer Peter Schreyer and, more recently, Belgian Luc Donckerwolke.

The Hyundai Motor Company Australia (HMCA) of 2019 is a whole other animal from when it launched in Australia in 1986.

Genesis is currently offering two models: the revamped original Hyundai Genesis, now badged as G80, plus the all-new G70. An SUV is planned for 2020.

Hands down, the most exciting new car from the Hyundai/ Genesis factory is the super sporty G70, available in two engine configurations: a neck-snapping 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 (which it shares with sibling, the Kia Stinger) and a slightly tamer 2.0-litre single-turbo 4-cylinder. The engines deliver 272kW and 180kW respectively.

In the 2.0T, the four-door, rear-wheel drive sedan comes in five specification levels, ranging in price from A$59,000 to A$69,000. Meanwhile, the 3.3T starts at A$72,000 and peaks just shy of A$80,000 for the fully-tricked Ultimate Sport.

Our test drive in the G70, which is pitched directly at the BMW 3 Series, was limited to a wet city afternoon, but was enough to give us a solid grounding in the feel and comfort of this sophisticated sports saloon. The most telling attribute of our 3.3T test car was the abundance of instantaneous power delivered by the two turbochargers to the rear wheels via the limited slip differential. Even though traction control is standard (and very handy), caution still needs to be exercised.

Our open road test in the G80, pitched at the Bavarian’s 5-Series, allowed us to test the highway driver aids like the smart cruise control, which not only governs your speed and helps you preserve your driver’s licence, but will use early-warning radar to make sure you’re keeping a safe distance and not tailgating. Lane guidance is useful too but can be pesky on narrow roads, and ABS and traction control is now mandatory on all vehicles in this category.

Other cool accessories include blind-spot assistance and speed displayed in a ‘heads up’ projection on the forward windscreen and a brilliant 17-speaker Lexicon by Harman sound system. But there’s a lot more too, which you can try for yourself when you book a test drive at genesis.com.

The dinky little Corolla-beating Excel took the country by storm, briefly outselling all other passenger cars, but Hyundai’s move into larger, more luxurious vehicles has taken somewhat longer despite winning prestigious awards and with quantum leaps in design, perception and build finish.

The name Genesis entered the Hyundai lexicon in 2008 with the premium passenger sedan, the Hyundai Genesis. But it wasn’t until 2015 that Genesis became a marque of its own, with the eponymous luxury sedan repackaged and uprated as the Genesis G80. Similarly, the larger Hyundai Equus became the G90, to rival the likes of the BMW 7 Series, but it seems doubtful the left-hand drive-only model will find its way to Australia anytime soon.

Until the opening of the stunning, split-level concept store in Sydney’s Pitt Street, all the news was devoted to ‘if’ and ‘when’ as launch dates were pushed back again and again. As it turned out, integrating the Genesis brand into the existing dealer network and still retaining its exclusivity proved a challenge. Hence, the disruptive factoryowned concept store approach was developed, turning our automotive retail culture on its head.

The ultra-modern Genesis Studio is located in the former Billabong store right in the beating heart of Sydney’s premium CBD retail precinct, rubbing shoulders with Bally, Tiffany & Co., Chopard and Mont Blanc. It is revolutionary in how the brand interfaces with customers. New studios are also planned for Melbourne and Brisbane.

“We’re leading – which is both interesting and difficult – because it’s nice to be a pioneer, but in many ways we’re paving the way,” said then Genesis Australia General Manager, Peter Evans, in a 2018 interview.

Instead of pushy, incentive-driven salespeople, customers will be met by polite, fashionable frontline staff who do not have direct experience in the automotive retail sector, coming instead from roles with other luxury brands. Servicing is done remotely, with staff collecting your car and providing a loan car while the scheduled service is performed. Scheduled servicing, by the way, is included for five years, along with a class-leading five-year warranty with every new vehicle.

Genesis reflects the Korean ethos of being brave but strategic, and you can be sure we’ll hear a lot more of this brand as new models arrive.