You knew it had to happen soon, and this week Hyundai finally announced they would break off their Genesis line of cars into an all-new stand alone luxury brand similar to Lexus and Infiniti.
It makes sense as Hyundai has been reaching into the higher echelons of automotive market segments with their large Genesis and Equus models which are priced and marketed far and away from the brand’s bargain basement cars like Accent which currently share the same showroom floor.
The new Genesis brand starts officially in December, and they say will offer six new models by 2020 which will compete with the likes of Lexus, Infiniti, Audi and the like.
They plan to concentrate on four main areas, human-focused innovation, refined and balanced performance, athletic elegance in design and a hassle-free customer experience.
And what they may be selling us in the immediate future, is some of what we have already seen, such as the Genesis sedan and the next generation range topping Equus.
And that sexy new coupe concept Hyundai showed us this summer at Pebble Beach, well we expect something like that too.
These will get a newly designed version of the Genesis logo when the brand becomes official, which is more elegant and upscale.
The cars like most competitors will get their own alphanumeric naming structure starting with G for Genesis, and numbers like 70, 80, and 90 for the vehicle size.
Design will be headed up by Luc Donckerwolke, who cut his teeth designing for Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini.
He along with veteran designer Peter Schreyer, who has already redesigned Hyundai and Kia from the dark days, are likely to come up with some good looking sheetmetal.
Genesis will get stand alone sales and service channels, coming initially to Korea, China, North America and the Middle East with Europe and the rest of Asia to follow later. The plot thickens.
