Genesis has been building itself up as a competitor to the likes of the German luxury brands, for much lower prices. But it is still missing a few items, like having some sort of crossover or SUV - something that will be launching in the coming year or so. The brand is lacking a performance variant to take on the likes of BMW's M and Mercedes' AMG. However, a comment made by Hyundai product planner Mike O’Brien hints they're looking into it.
"A big effort with the G70 was thermal management, to make sure that this car will hold u. We're building for the future. I'll just say that," said O'Brien to Road & Track.
Proper thermal management is something essential for new vehicles, but you don't normally hear an automaker talk about it except when it comes to high-performance models. This becomes more intriguing when you take into account that Albert Biermann, now the head of Hyundai's r&d division, worked previously at BMW's M division.
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QuoteThat note about extra cooling capacity in the G70 seems to indicate that Genesis wants to offer something sportier than the standard car, perhaps with racetrack performance in mind. An M3-fighter? That seems ambitious, but then again, so was targeting the 3-Series in the first place. And given how sweetly the current G70 drives, maybe Genesis could just pull it off.
Would such a model be badged as a G70 N? O'Brien told me it's too early to say. Genesis is still figuring out how it wants to brand any eventual performance cars.
The comment about possibly badging it as a N model is also interesting. We have reported previously that Genesis has no plans on doing a N, so it hints that Genesis may come up with its own branding for a performance model.
Source: Road & Track
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