It's a great way to add uniqueness to the car. For many of us, French cars basically don't exist outside of Europe so their weird design cues have never been seen before. Genesis using those instantly gives them odd and interesting aspects that no other car has, especially the boring market here in North America.
Though, like the GV80, it’s a poor seller. My dad saw one at a fancy restaurant near our house in a sea of BMW and Mercedes CUVs and remarked on how much better the GV70 looks. I asked him if he’d consider getting one (he will soon be in the market for that type of vehicle) and he said he couldn’t be caught dead in a Korean car. He even thought it was just a Hyundai. Attitudes like these amongst the masses are the reason why Audi and Lexus can sell nearly 100k Q5s or RXs a year but Genesis can barely move out a tenth that many GV70s and 80s.
It takes time and a generational shift to develop brand images. We all know old people are a near universal drag on society and they've got a terrible habit of teaching their offspring all their bad habits so Merc and BMW et al are riding higher than ever on ridiculously inflated and mostly undeserved brand images. Why you're ragging on Lexus I'm not sure because they sell genuinely good cars and had to fight their own battle with the European brands decades ago. I mean, at the same time Lexus was trying to build its image the Euro brands were selling cars that didn't even have cupholders yet were somehow the wet dream of every boomer who wasn't doing a good enough job of saving for retirement. Now Genesis is in the same spot Lexus was 20+ years ago.
I'm not ragging on Lexus at all. As you acknowledge, Lexus, like Genesis, started from nothing in terms of reputation (though Japanese cars were never perceived as badly built as Korean ones), but eventually became a sales leader. The RX is a great value, and though it may be stylistically less inspiring than the GV70, it is probably more palatable to the average consumer, likely because there are far more of them around.
| 2.5T (a) | $68,500 | (+$2100) |
| 2.5T AWD (a) | $68,786 | (+$2114) |
| 2.2D AWD (a) | $73,200 | (+$2106) |
| 3.5T Sport AWD (a) | $84,600 | (+$2133) |
| Electrified AWD (a) | $127,800 | New variant |
I think people associate 2 spoke steering wheels with 1970s crap and 4 spoke steering wheels with early, ugly airbag steering wheels. Three spokes came out when the suppliers were finally able to reduce the airbag to a reasonable size - so I think for many people, 4 spokes still have an association of "cheap used car" and 2 spokes as "really old". I don't expect those associations to hold now that some manufacturers are experimenting with them in premium products, but people are slow to accept change. I don't really care how many spokes the wheel has as long as the design looks good.
www.motor1.com
They've got a fundamentally different design language going on. The German brands still think that rakish shoulder lines are sporty and then slap them on everything, including cars that aren't remotely sporty. Genesis has adopted the opposite. They've gone for the Rolls Royce boat-like shoulder line that drops toward the rear rather than rises. It's not athletic but it is a powerful and luxurious look and it makes the car look longer than it is. It also means the rear fascia is not six feet up in the air like on the Merc and BMW, looking like a baseball helmet.I find it funny that while the German equivalents are on their second or third generation of SUV coupes and still look rather awkward, Genesis just shows up and nails the proportions on its first attempt.
The GV80 Coupe looks more sporty than the two Germans pictured, to me. It looks far better because they actually cared about proportion, which I don't believe the case with the BMW and Mercedes - because both of those companies have cynically gutted their design integrity and adopted a "they'll buy anything with our badge approach". Audi "coupe" SUVs look far better than their BMW & Mercedes counterparts because VAG still cares about design.
I guess we need to define "sporty" lol. I agree the Genesis looks more powerful than the Germans. The Germans remind me of energetic little yappy dogs that are trying to be tough. The Genesis looks far more mature, perhaps like a strong cat rather than an angry ratdog.
I’m just quoting this post to say that this car is U.G.L.Y. It’s like someone took a picture of a car on MS word and scaled it vertically. Awful.
