Car companies love to tease upcoming new products with dimly-lit shots of door handles and badges. Hyundai is cutting to the chase.
The 2015 Hyundai Genesis isn’t supposed to debut for some time, but the Korean carmaker decided to give the world a quick preview anyway.
All we’re getting are a couple of renderings, but they reveal what may be the most important aspect of the redesigned Genesis: its styling.
The first-generation Genesis was supposed to pick off where the original Lexus LS left off, giving customers the luxury of a BMW 7 Series or Mercedes-Benz S-Class at a much-lower price.
The Genesis did exactly that, but it hasn’t been a complete success. The car is competent, but lacks personality. That’s something every luxury car, even a bargian one, should have.
Rather than risk alienating buyers, Hyundai’s stylists studiously copied the looks of understated German and Japanese luxury sedans. The result was a car so generic it looked it belonged in a driver’s ed manual.
The 2015 Genesis goes a long way toward remedying that problem.
Most of the styling is cribbed from last year’s HCD-14 concept, although the Genesis is still a sedan, not a hatchback. The overall look is much more sophisticated, but still a bit derivative.
The giant grille and sculpted flanks look they were taken off an Audi A8. The shape of the headlights and roof suggest a Volvo S80.
The car doesn’t look bad, but it doesn’t look like a Hyundai Genesis either. To be fair, some people might say that’s a good thing.
Recent Hyundais have been styling home runs, but the company may want to separate the Genesis from the rest of the lineup visually to give it more cache. The target audience probably prefers their cars to look like Audis and Volvos than Elantras..
With the renderings out, it probably won’t be long before Hyundai releases more information on the 2015 Genesis. Check back here for all the latest information.
