February 28, 2025 • 21 mins
Jon Summers is the Motoring Historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. On his show he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, motoring travel.
In this episode, Jon reviews three Genesis vehicles during a road test in Santa Cruz. Exploring the Genesis GV80 Coupe, GV80, and G80 sedan, he compares them to other luxury brands like Bentley and Lexus. He discusses his initial skepticism about SUV coupes, his experiences with the vehicles' infotainment systems, and the pros and cons of their design and performance. He finds the GV80 Coupe particularly impressive for its luxury feel and lessens the sting of its high price point. Jon also mentions how the Genesis brand is evolving its own design language, distinct from other luxury brands. The episode ends with a nod to his favorite, the G80 sedan.
====================- Judas Priest - Riding On the Wind
- A digression on speed dating
- Genesis GV80 Coupe - The Car Least Likely To Make You Regret Your Car Payment, “a driver focused design”, mesh design theme J loves
- Lexus vs. Toyota, leather heated seats worth the extra $
- No creep in the transmission
- Hyundai Equus Kia K900
- New cars having different methods of starting / putting in gear. Unlike the cars we grew up with. Usually buttons “30 secs on the microwave, please”
- Testament - Electric Crown
- Genesis GV80 - “the Range Rovery one”. 17mpg instead of 13mpg for the GV80 Coupe
- Genesis G80 sedan. J’s favourite. The blobby wheels. Red leather interior. Terrific at high speed. Compares favourably with J’s old AMG Benz, a RWDV8 vs this, a AWD turbo V6. Old fashioned big fast sedan, it is a one size fits all, track day or airport limo.
- Genesis Sport vs. Sport+ settings
- Judas Priest - Riding On The Wind
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
John Summers is the motoring historian.
He was a company car thrashing,technology sales rep, that turned
into a fairly inept sports bike rider.
Hailing from California, he collectscars and bikes built with plenty of
cheap and fast, and not much reliable.
On his show, he gets together withvarious co hosts to talk about new
and old cars, driving, motorbikes,motor racing, and motoring travel.
(00:39):
Good day.
Good morning.
Good afternoon.
It is John Summers,the motoring historian.
This is part three of my road testsof cars that I drove down in Santa
Cruz towards the end of last year.
Um, this time three Genesis's.
So in the interest now of breaking downthe third wall, took a break, is now
(01:03):
the day after I did this earlier, Idid the first set of recording, right?
And that's relevant.
It's relevant that I break down thethird wall at this point, right?
Because it was tiring.
Right.
It was tiring doing these cars backto back to back to back to back.
And actually, I was thinkingabout it afterwards.
I've never done speed dating.
Speed dating was something thatcame, you know, after my time dating.
(01:26):
I'm not sure if I've reallyhad a time dating, but speed
dating definitely came after it.
At the time when I learned about speeddating, I was like, how fucking terrible.
You never get the chance to get to knowa person, like you're dismissed in less
time than it takes you to flick througha magazine in a dentist's waiting room.
You know, is that how trivialit, you know, we've made
relationships, but you know, Ididn't need to be so pearl clutchy.
(01:48):
With hindsight, I realized that thatspeed dating, you probably know in
the first five minutes whether ornot somebody's really interesting.
You meet half, you meetsix people in one evening.
You know, which one you want to stayin touch with, you know, it actually,
it allows you to do a swifter sift.
And even in the case of these cars, I'mnot sure if people were like this, but
in the case of these cars, you developeda rhythm of what you were going to do.
(02:13):
So in other words, you got thecar, there was a roundabout
that you could drive around.
So I did that straight awaycoming off the roundabout.
You could usually get alaunch to already get a sense.
Of what the car was, was like, then therewas like a 30 mile an hour, like pottering
section when you could like, you know,play with the infotainment and do all
of the kinds of stuff that has nothingto do with driving, but it is actually
(02:34):
important to, uh, to assess in a car.
Then, as I say, there was the duallybit that became increasingly less
traffic y and allowed increasingly, youknow, higher speeds until eventually
there was a piece of road, there weresections of road where you could.
Consistently, as, uh, as Keith Code oncesaid, do what you liked with the throttle.
(02:54):
What's a straight, Keith?
Wherever you can do whatyou like with the throttle.
I always think that's a gooddefinition of, uh, of a straight.
So the Genesis GV80 Coupe.
It's an SUV, but a coupe.
I know, like, BMW X6,like, what is the point?
Like, haven't we grown outof an SUV as a, as a coupe?
(03:18):
I know, what a turdbucket.
That was my initialthought upon seeing it.
But I have to say, had the Lucidand the Camry not been there, that
GV80, the coupe, would have been mypick of the cars as the best car.
(03:39):
And the reason is that I realizedwhen I was driving it that we're
all in a realm now where we'respending a lot of money on a car.
In this case, 70 grand.
And most people are making a hugepayment for a very long time.
And at some point in that, maybe whenyou're hating your corporate job, or
(03:59):
you're getting a divorce or, you know, oneof these kinds of circumstances, at some
point you might regret that seven, 800payment each month that has put you in.
any of the many of the cars that we drove.
Hell, you might regret the three or fourhundred dollars it would take you to
get into the Camry or the Fiat 500 if itwas, you know, if you were out of work.
(04:20):
I know I would, I know that's why Ialways like to buy cars outright, but
we live in a world where most peopleare borrowing money to do this and are.
Eating a massive payment each month,the Genesis GV80 coupe is the car most
likely to make you forget how painfulthat price point is because it feels
(04:41):
luxury when you sit in it, the waythe seat looks, the way the seat grips
you, the way the thing just just thelook and feel that catwalk moment.
Is it as high quality as the Lexus?
No, actually the touch points when youreally, but that initial Shazam, you know,
(05:02):
it's fast fashion, that catwalk moment,the GV80 Coupe really has a Shazam.
Now, the rep was telling me thatit's a driver focused design.
And frankly, if I'd heard a say inthat before I drove it, I thought,
what a load of marketing bollocks.
No.
(05:23):
Right?
No, in comparison to the normalGV80 that they had there, the normal
GV80 that was like a Range Rover.
The coupe one, it felt sporty.
It felt cool.
I don't know what they'd done with.
I don't know if it was this.
I, I spoke to others, other peoplewho didn't like the coupe and
who liked the normal one better.
(05:43):
That's for specific differences.
You know, I think maybe the modes werea bit easier to access on the coupe.
The overall design language is very,very Bentley on both vehicles and the
manufacturer rep. Thank you, Amanda,by the way, for taking the time to
talk to me and to all this otherboring old gray guys about these cars.
And thank you for paying attention inthe product training and so on that you'd
(06:05):
done because whatever the, the stuffthey taught her was directly relevant.
The stuff that she was sharing with uswas directly relevant to what we were
talking about with the car design.
This Genesis design language withthese two strakes, they call them.
Power lines, how are you goingto call them cocaine lines?
Are they, but I love allthis design fluff, right?
Because I sat in it being like, there'sa cent where I sat in one of them.
(06:30):
I think the, the coop, whatever it wouldbe an option on any like G V G 80 kind
of vehicle is on the center console.
It's plastic.
But it has a sort of mesh pattern init that it makes it look really deep.
It doesn't make it looklike surface tension.
It makes it look like youcan look into the material.
And this mesh is like mirroredin some of the wheel designs.
(06:51):
And it's mirrored in that ostentatioustoo big grill and it's Bentley.
You know, when I, I said as much tothe manufacturer rep and she was like,
well, our designer came from Bentley.
Absolutely.
Right.
Now, interestingly, thereare a couple of things.
There are some of the stalks that oneach one of the three cars kind of felt
cheap, but that was the only place whereyou felt it had overstepped the mark.
(07:14):
Everywhere else, the thingjust felt Bentley Junior.
You know, like, literally, Idon't need to spend 300, 000.
I can get away with 70, 000.
Literally, that was how the thing felt.
And for what it's worth, the car parkappeal of these, uh, of these genesis.
I've asked people, women who havean eye for fashion, when we've
(07:34):
seen them in the car park, youknow, what is that over there?
Do you like it?
And what is it?
And, and the answer is There'sbeen a blend of yeses and nos and
I hate it or I love it, often basedupon the color and the way that
individual one's been specced.
There's a general agreement that thegrill is big, but the brands suggested
are usually Bentley and sometimes Lincoln.
(07:55):
Now that's impressive for a brandthat was born not that long ago.
And when you say Genesis, a lot of peoplestill say who in the way that when you
said Lexus in 1993, a lot of people said.
Who?
Myself included in fairness,I was cynical about Lexus.
I felt they were just a gussied up Toyota.
(08:17):
Yes, they are, but it's worth it.
The gussying up is, is worth it.
You know, just an aside, it's notjust me that feels like that, right?
These pickup trucks that I was lookingat, the base spec ones bring a lot less
than the, uh, the higher spec ones.
So in other words, my wife andson wanting respectively, um,
leather seats and heated seats.
(08:37):
That.
Puts you into like a Lariat or,uh, whatever the one, you know, not
the XL or the XLT in Ford, not thetradesman or the big horn in Dodge.
It like puts you onto the next level.
And it seems to me on a 30 grand truckto get the leather and the nice seats,
you're paying an extra five grand.
Right.
And when I put that to my wife, herpoint was, was probably worth it.
(08:59):
It's not to me.
Of course, this is why I like the truckthat I bought because it has this.
Gussied up leather, you know, andheated seats interior and it has cruise
and all this other stuff makes thething much, uh, much nicer to own.
But yeah, I mean that 2016 Tundra, itfeels very last generation in comparison
to stuff like this Genesis that I drovethat, yes is a SUV and yes is a coupe and
(09:21):
yes feels sporty and yes could tow and yeswould look impressive at the golf club.
And no, I didn't particularly like thecolor combination, but you know, you
could have it in a cool color combination.
An impressive piece of kit.
I'm just looking at the notes.
Interior ostentatious, but not too much.
More than the Lexus, a statement.
(09:42):
I have arrived.
Love the power delivery,especially the, and the exhaust
note when it was in sport mode.
Yeah, I really want to underline thatI had a separate line about this, the
awesome look and feel of the seats.
And I also wrote, uniquely Genesis, kindof Bentley, but not, and that's why you
(10:04):
can forgive the overstated design and theslightly cheap feeling knobs and dials
in places, because this isn't a Bentley,and it's not trying to be a Bentley, it's
trying to be a Korean luxury, and that's,you know, it says that Lexus wasn't a
straight copy of the Mercedes S Classbecause people who could never afford a
(10:24):
Mercedes S Class could buy it, It wasn't.
And this Genesis, this has the, andcomparing the three together, there's
definitely a feel of a developingKorean design language here.
And bring it on guys, bring it on, becausetwo of these Genesis's I really liked.
And the third one, you know, if I'dliked Range Rovers, maybe I'd like that.
(10:46):
This GV80 Coupe, there was nocreep in the transmission either.
Don't know what I think of that.
I remember test driving a Genesis ormaybe a Hyundai Equus or, I mean, if you
go through my archives, you'll be ableto find the tests that I did because I,
I wrote tests, the Kia K900 as well, likethe big Kia from a hundred years ago.
(11:08):
But I remember one of thosethat I drove 10, 15 years ago,
you could switch the creep off.
And I dare say somewhereburied in the menus, you could
turn the creep on and off.
But of course the yeast,EVs don't have creep.
It was just interesting that thisgas hybrid didn't have creep.
I just want to make nowa really important aside.
(11:29):
This probably should have gone inthe intro piece, but you know, I've
just organized what you want to do.
Every one of these cars had abespoke way of putting it in gear.
Once upon a time, when you sat in a car,you put the key in the ignition, you
turned it one, two, three positions,the engine coughs and starts, right?
(11:50):
Uh, then we, some cars had the pushstart, then we went to the proximity,
you know, with these EVs, each maker hassort of done their own way of pushing a
button or pulling a little lever or it'sall variations on pushing a button, but.
The fact that putting the car into gear,there's probably half a dozen different
(12:14):
methods to put a car into gear, showsus the inflection point that we're
at, that literally when I was a lad inthe 80s, every car, you just put the
key in the ignition and turned, everycar started the same, the same like a
light switch in the corner of the room.
That is not so anymore.
And, and interestingly, thecar that perhaps gave me the
most chip was the Fiat 500.
(12:34):
And it's very plain inside, butthere's no, like, you're looking
on the column, you're looking onthe floor, there's nothing there.
Where the heater controls areon the instrument pinnacle, like
on the center console, there's aP, a D, an R, and it's on there.
But you like push a button, like, youknow, 30 seconds on the microwave, please.
(12:55):
you know the lucid's got this like littlelever on there it's basically you see
they've got like a version of the leverthat if you know toyota's cruise control
it's a bit like that but in a differentplace on the you know on the console but
yeah it did take me you had to relearnhow to put your foot on the brake and
put your thumb on the lever on the sideand move it from P to D, you know, that
(13:18):
process, which has been instinctivefor so long, that is being reinvented
by these, by these new vehicles.
The next one I drove was theGV80, like Range Rover one.
It had white leather interior, which,you know, It is awesome interior design,
(13:44):
awesome, like, lovely place to be.
Similar quality to the other Genesis,the three Genesis bulletproof.
Quality, not quite as nice asthe Lexus or the Range, but
still really, uh, really nice.
I felt like the seating position in thenormal GV80 was different from the Goop.
It felt like higher up somehow.
I didn't like it.
(14:04):
As much.
I was surprised by howdifferent the two of them were.
I mean, I said that a momentago, but yeah, I was surprised
by how different they were.
The other thing I wrote down on the, the,the range rry, like normal SUV GV 80, not
the coupe, uh, the, the center console.
And this is on all the genesis.
Is, is, is, is, is, is, isgenocide, uh, gen, um, the center
(14:25):
console opens in the middle.
It's a small thing, but it's just oneof those things where every time I
operated, I was like, this is cool.
You know, it was just a nice thing to, Idon't think the novelty of that wears off.
You know, the novelty ofgood design doesn't wear off.
The novelty of gimmicks wears off, but thenovelty of good design doesn't wear off.
Maybe this is a gimmick,not good design, who knows?
I mean, and another thing thatI noted was I toggled around on
(14:47):
the infotainment a little bit.
I was getting more confident with theinfotainment and less, you know, Like
those chimps at the beginning of 2001,a Space odyssey with the black box.
Normally I'm a bit like that withtechnology, but on this occasion I toggled
around a bit more and I thought it wasperhaps interesting that whilst the coupe
was, uh, was achieved 13 miles gallon, theranging sedan, you know, fallback window
(15:12):
one was doing 17, which maybe reflectedhow the two, the two were being driven
and their, you know, and their relative.
driving characteristics.
But I mean, just as an aside,that's terrible, isn't it?
For a new car.
It's really appalling for a new middleof the 2020s, you know, 40 years since
we first learned of global warming and,you know, the import, you know, I don't
(15:35):
want to get up on my high horse, but itdoes seem like we spent an awful lot of.
design energy developing in not thebest way if 13 miles to the gallon.
That's even worse than my Tundra.
Anyway, enough of suchtrivial practical things.
I love the G80 sedan.
(15:55):
That was the next one that I drove.
This one didn't have theBentley mesh pan wheels.
This one had like multi spoked wheelswith these like little blobby bubbles in.
There's a kid in the pickupline whose parents have one.
So I'd seen it before.
On the SUV, it's, it's kind of too much.
On the sedan, I loved it.
The sedan also has the same, had thesame like matte black finish on it.
(16:18):
It had a red leather interior,not bright red, but pretty red.
The whole thing really worked for me.
I mean, I just got it init, got in it and drove it.
As I say, it was the third ofthe Genesis that I'd driven.
(16:50):
I think I drove it faster than any ofthe other cars, and that reflects how
comfortable it was at those speeds.
When I got out of it, I walked all theway around it for the first time and
realized it was a three and a half literV6, which I would have guessed if you'd
have asked me, but I'd literally notthought about it before I just got in and
hoofed it and the hoofing of it, it was.
(17:14):
and better than my old AMG Benz.
Well, you would hope so, wouldn't you?
But 3.
5 turbo AWD, I did not expect it tohave AMG like king of the road, kind of.
Planted quality in, in,you know, sweeping turns.
(17:34):
I mean, I guess it'sturbocharged, isn't it?
But you know, the enthusiasm thatit lunged forward at high speeds
was, was really, really impressive.
I left it in sport mode the whole time.
I didn't mess aroundwith the sport plus mode.
Um, you can do.
Custom modes, this is trueof all three of the Genesis.
(17:55):
The Sport Plus turns the tractioncontrol off automatically.
This and the Coupe had Sport Plus.
The Range Rovery onedidn't have Sport Plus.
It just had like a sport kindof mode, which makes sense.
I would program my own settings withthese, but you need to drive the car
further and get more familiar with thembefore you could really, uh, you could
(18:15):
really choose that, that properly.
Really, the G80, it wasn't like I,it was like, wow, it blew me away.
This was all, you know, I probablyhad more fun driving the Elantra N and
definitely the Ioniq N was far moreof a, you know, product that's looking
towards 2030 rather than a productthat's looking towards 1990, but I'm
(18:40):
a child of the late 20th century.
And I'm also an old man now.
And I love a big, fast sedan andthat Genesis just did everything
that it says on the tin.
And I'm sitting here now thinking,you know, there was one question
was one of the things, categorieswe had to vote on was if it was
our money, what would we buy?
And, you know, without a moment'shesitation, it would be that G80.
(19:03):
New or used, you know, and I wouldheartily recommend if you, if you
just need a car to just do thejob and you can drop 80 grand.
There's never going to be, whetherit's Goodwood, whether it's a track
day, whether it's moving your familyaround, whether it's fitting it in the
car park, whether it's a weekend inTahoe, there's never, there's never
(19:25):
going to be a piece of bullshit that youthrow at that G80 that he doesn't wear.
better than you ever thought it could.
It's got the sinews and skeletonof a Teutonic saloon, but with
this really cool, kind of Bentley,kind of Korean, kind of pass me
the wasabi kind of thing going on.
(19:47):
Yeah, and I know wasabiis not Korea, right?
I said that because ithas a different feel.
It has, you know, the skyline wasnot the same as a Porsche Turbo.
It might have had the same notionabout it, four wheel drive,
turbocharge, ultimate performance.
(20:08):
You know, all of that might have beenthe same, but the Skyline was done in a
uniquely Japanese kind of way, and Genesisare walking towards, arguably, or already
there with that kind of design language.
So, uh, Bravo.
Most enjoyable.
And thanks for bringing the car.
(20:39):
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John Summers is the motoring historian.
He was a company car thrashing,technology sales rep, that turned
into a fairly inept sports bike rider.
Hailing from California, he collectscars and bikes built with plenty of
cheap and fast, and not much reliable.
On his show, he gets together withvarious co hosts to talk about new
and old cars, driving, motorbikes,motor racing, and motoring travel.
(00:39):
Good day.
Good morning.
Good afternoon.
It is John Summers,the motoring historian.
This is part three of my road testsof cars that I drove down in Santa
Cruz towards the end of last year.
Um, this time three Genesis's.
So in the interest now of breaking downthe third wall, took a break, is now
(01:03):
the day after I did this earlier, Idid the first set of recording, right?
And that's relevant.
It's relevant that I break down thethird wall at this point, right?
Because it was tiring.
Right.
It was tiring doing these cars backto back to back to back to back.
And actually, I was thinkingabout it afterwards.
I've never done speed dating.
Speed dating was something thatcame, you know, after my time dating.
(01:26):
I'm not sure if I've reallyhad a time dating, but speed
dating definitely came after it.
At the time when I learned about speeddating, I was like, how fucking terrible.
You never get the chance to get to knowa person, like you're dismissed in less
time than it takes you to flick througha magazine in a dentist's waiting room.
You know, is that how trivialit, you know, we've made
relationships, but you know, Ididn't need to be so pearl clutchy.
(01:48):
With hindsight, I realized that thatspeed dating, you probably know in
the first five minutes whether ornot somebody's really interesting.
You meet half, you meetsix people in one evening.
You know, which one you want to stayin touch with, you know, it actually,
it allows you to do a swifter sift.
And even in the case of these cars, I'mnot sure if people were like this, but
in the case of these cars, you developeda rhythm of what you were going to do.
(02:13):
So in other words, you got thecar, there was a roundabout
that you could drive around.
So I did that straight awaycoming off the roundabout.
You could usually get alaunch to already get a sense.
Of what the car was, was like, then therewas like a 30 mile an hour, like pottering
section when you could like, you know,play with the infotainment and do all
of the kinds of stuff that has nothingto do with driving, but it is actually
(02:34):
important to, uh, to assess in a car.
Then, as I say, there was the duallybit that became increasingly less
traffic y and allowed increasingly, youknow, higher speeds until eventually
there was a piece of road, there weresections of road where you could.
Consistently, as, uh, as Keith Code oncesaid, do what you liked with the throttle.
(02:54):
What's a straight, Keith?
Wherever you can do whatyou like with the throttle.
I always think that's a gooddefinition of, uh, of a straight.
So the Genesis GV80 Coupe.
It's an SUV, but a coupe.
I know, like, BMW X6,like, what is the point?
Like, haven't we grown outof an SUV as a, as a coupe?
(03:18):
I know, what a turdbucket.
That was my initialthought upon seeing it.
But I have to say, had the Lucidand the Camry not been there, that
GV80, the coupe, would have been mypick of the cars as the best car.
(03:39):
And the reason is that I realizedwhen I was driving it that we're
all in a realm now where we'respending a lot of money on a car.
In this case, 70 grand.
And most people are making a hugepayment for a very long time.
And at some point in that, maybe whenyou're hating your corporate job, or
(03:59):
you're getting a divorce or, you know, oneof these kinds of circumstances, at some
point you might regret that seven, 800payment each month that has put you in.
any of the many of the cars that we drove.
Hell, you might regret the three or fourhundred dollars it would take you to
get into the Camry or the Fiat 500 if itwas, you know, if you were out of work.
(04:20):
I know I would, I know that's why Ialways like to buy cars outright, but
we live in a world where most peopleare borrowing money to do this and are.
Eating a massive payment each month,the Genesis GV80 coupe is the car most
likely to make you forget how painfulthat price point is because it feels
(04:41):
luxury when you sit in it, the waythe seat looks, the way the seat grips
you, the way the thing just just thelook and feel that catwalk moment.
Is it as high quality as the Lexus?
No, actually the touch points when youreally, but that initial Shazam, you know,
(05:02):
it's fast fashion, that catwalk moment,the GV80 Coupe really has a Shazam.
Now, the rep was telling me thatit's a driver focused design.
And frankly, if I'd heard a say inthat before I drove it, I thought,
what a load of marketing bollocks.
No.
(05:23):
Right?
No, in comparison to the normalGV80 that they had there, the normal
GV80 that was like a Range Rover.
The coupe one, it felt sporty.
It felt cool.
I don't know what they'd done with.
I don't know if it was this.
I, I spoke to others, other peoplewho didn't like the coupe and
who liked the normal one better.
(05:43):
That's for specific differences.
You know, I think maybe the modes werea bit easier to access on the coupe.
The overall design language is very,very Bentley on both vehicles and the
manufacturer rep. Thank you, Amanda,by the way, for taking the time to
talk to me and to all this otherboring old gray guys about these cars.
And thank you for paying attention inthe product training and so on that you'd
(06:05):
done because whatever the, the stuffthey taught her was directly relevant.
The stuff that she was sharing with uswas directly relevant to what we were
talking about with the car design.
This Genesis design language withthese two strakes, they call them.
Power lines, how are you goingto call them cocaine lines?
Are they, but I love allthis design fluff, right?
Because I sat in it being like, there'sa cent where I sat in one of them.
(06:30):
I think the, the coop, whatever it wouldbe an option on any like G V G 80 kind
of vehicle is on the center console.
It's plastic.
But it has a sort of mesh pattern init that it makes it look really deep.
It doesn't make it looklike surface tension.
It makes it look like youcan look into the material.
And this mesh is like mirroredin some of the wheel designs.
(06:51):
And it's mirrored in that ostentatioustoo big grill and it's Bentley.
You know, when I, I said as much tothe manufacturer rep and she was like,
well, our designer came from Bentley.
Absolutely.
Right.
Now, interestingly, thereare a couple of things.
There are some of the stalks that oneach one of the three cars kind of felt
cheap, but that was the only place whereyou felt it had overstepped the mark.
(07:14):
Everywhere else, the thingjust felt Bentley Junior.
You know, like, literally, Idon't need to spend 300, 000.
I can get away with 70, 000.
Literally, that was how the thing felt.
And for what it's worth, the car parkappeal of these, uh, of these genesis.
I've asked people, women who havean eye for fashion, when we've
(07:34):
seen them in the car park, youknow, what is that over there?
Do you like it?
And what is it?
And, and the answer is There'sbeen a blend of yeses and nos and
I hate it or I love it, often basedupon the color and the way that
individual one's been specced.
There's a general agreement that thegrill is big, but the brands suggested
are usually Bentley and sometimes Lincoln.
(07:55):
Now that's impressive for a brandthat was born not that long ago.
And when you say Genesis, a lot of peoplestill say who in the way that when you
said Lexus in 1993, a lot of people said.
Who?
Myself included in fairness,I was cynical about Lexus.
I felt they were just a gussied up Toyota.
(08:17):
Yes, they are, but it's worth it.
The gussying up is, is worth it.
You know, just an aside, it's notjust me that feels like that, right?
These pickup trucks that I was lookingat, the base spec ones bring a lot less
than the, uh, the higher spec ones.
So in other words, my wife andson wanting respectively, um,
leather seats and heated seats.
(08:37):
That.
Puts you into like a Lariat or,uh, whatever the one, you know, not
the XL or the XLT in Ford, not thetradesman or the big horn in Dodge.
It like puts you onto the next level.
And it seems to me on a 30 grand truckto get the leather and the nice seats,
you're paying an extra five grand.
Right.
And when I put that to my wife, herpoint was, was probably worth it.
(08:59):
It's not to me.
Of course, this is why I like the truckthat I bought because it has this.
Gussied up leather, you know, andheated seats interior and it has cruise
and all this other stuff makes thething much, uh, much nicer to own.
But yeah, I mean that 2016 Tundra, itfeels very last generation in comparison
to stuff like this Genesis that I drovethat, yes is a SUV and yes is a coupe and
(09:21):
yes feels sporty and yes could tow and yeswould look impressive at the golf club.
And no, I didn't particularly like thecolor combination, but you know, you
could have it in a cool color combination.
An impressive piece of kit.
I'm just looking at the notes.
Interior ostentatious, but not too much.
More than the Lexus, a statement.
(09:42):
I have arrived.
Love the power delivery,especially the, and the exhaust
note when it was in sport mode.
Yeah, I really want to underline thatI had a separate line about this, the
awesome look and feel of the seats.
And I also wrote, uniquely Genesis, kindof Bentley, but not, and that's why you
(10:04):
can forgive the overstated design and theslightly cheap feeling knobs and dials
in places, because this isn't a Bentley,and it's not trying to be a Bentley, it's
trying to be a Korean luxury, and that's,you know, it says that Lexus wasn't a
straight copy of the Mercedes S Classbecause people who could never afford a
(10:24):
Mercedes S Class could buy it, It wasn't.
And this Genesis, this has the, andcomparing the three together, there's
definitely a feel of a developingKorean design language here.
And bring it on guys, bring it on, becausetwo of these Genesis's I really liked.
And the third one, you know, if I'dliked Range Rovers, maybe I'd like that.
(10:46):
This GV80 Coupe, there was nocreep in the transmission either.
Don't know what I think of that.
I remember test driving a Genesis ormaybe a Hyundai Equus or, I mean, if you
go through my archives, you'll be ableto find the tests that I did because I,
I wrote tests, the Kia K900 as well, likethe big Kia from a hundred years ago.
(11:08):
But I remember one of thosethat I drove 10, 15 years ago,
you could switch the creep off.
And I dare say somewhereburied in the menus, you could
turn the creep on and off.
But of course the yeast,EVs don't have creep.
It was just interesting that thisgas hybrid didn't have creep.
I just want to make nowa really important aside.
(11:29):
This probably should have gone inthe intro piece, but you know, I've
just organized what you want to do.
Every one of these cars had abespoke way of putting it in gear.
Once upon a time, when you sat in a car,you put the key in the ignition, you
turned it one, two, three positions,the engine coughs and starts, right?
(11:50):
Uh, then we, some cars had the pushstart, then we went to the proximity,
you know, with these EVs, each maker hassort of done their own way of pushing a
button or pulling a little lever or it'sall variations on pushing a button, but.
The fact that putting the car into gear,there's probably half a dozen different
(12:14):
methods to put a car into gear, showsus the inflection point that we're
at, that literally when I was a lad inthe 80s, every car, you just put the
key in the ignition and turned, everycar started the same, the same like a
light switch in the corner of the room.
That is not so anymore.
And, and interestingly, thecar that perhaps gave me the
most chip was the Fiat 500.
(12:34):
And it's very plain inside, butthere's no, like, you're looking
on the column, you're looking onthe floor, there's nothing there.
Where the heater controls areon the instrument pinnacle, like
on the center console, there's aP, a D, an R, and it's on there.
But you like push a button, like, youknow, 30 seconds on the microwave, please.
(12:55):
you know the lucid's got this like littlelever on there it's basically you see
they've got like a version of the leverthat if you know toyota's cruise control
it's a bit like that but in a differentplace on the you know on the console but
yeah it did take me you had to relearnhow to put your foot on the brake and
put your thumb on the lever on the sideand move it from P to D, you know, that
(13:18):
process, which has been instinctivefor so long, that is being reinvented
by these, by these new vehicles.
The next one I drove was theGV80, like Range Rover one.
It had white leather interior, which,you know, It is awesome interior design,
(13:44):
awesome, like, lovely place to be.
Similar quality to the other Genesis,the three Genesis bulletproof.
Quality, not quite as nice asthe Lexus or the Range, but
still really, uh, really nice.
I felt like the seating position in thenormal GV80 was different from the Goop.
It felt like higher up somehow.
I didn't like it.
(14:04):
As much.
I was surprised by howdifferent the two of them were.
I mean, I said that a momentago, but yeah, I was surprised
by how different they were.
The other thing I wrote down on the, the,the range rry, like normal SUV GV 80, not
the coupe, uh, the, the center console.
And this is on all the genesis.
Is, is, is, is, is, is, isgenocide, uh, gen, um, the center
(14:25):
console opens in the middle.
It's a small thing, but it's just oneof those things where every time I
operated, I was like, this is cool.
You know, it was just a nice thing to, Idon't think the novelty of that wears off.
You know, the novelty ofgood design doesn't wear off.
The novelty of gimmicks wears off, but thenovelty of good design doesn't wear off.
Maybe this is a gimmick,not good design, who knows?
I mean, and another thing thatI noted was I toggled around on
(14:47):
the infotainment a little bit.
I was getting more confident with theinfotainment and less, you know, Like
those chimps at the beginning of 2001,a Space odyssey with the black box.
Normally I'm a bit like that withtechnology, but on this occasion I toggled
around a bit more and I thought it wasperhaps interesting that whilst the coupe
was, uh, was achieved 13 miles gallon, theranging sedan, you know, fallback window
(15:12):
one was doing 17, which maybe reflectedhow the two, the two were being driven
and their, you know, and their relative.
driving characteristics.
But I mean, just as an aside,that's terrible, isn't it?
For a new car.
It's really appalling for a new middleof the 2020s, you know, 40 years since
we first learned of global warming and,you know, the import, you know, I don't
(15:35):
want to get up on my high horse, but itdoes seem like we spent an awful lot of.
design energy developing in not thebest way if 13 miles to the gallon.
That's even worse than my Tundra.
Anyway, enough of suchtrivial practical things.
I love the G80 sedan.
(15:55):
That was the next one that I drove.
This one didn't have theBentley mesh pan wheels.
This one had like multi spoked wheelswith these like little blobby bubbles in.
There's a kid in the pickupline whose parents have one.
So I'd seen it before.
On the SUV, it's, it's kind of too much.
On the sedan, I loved it.
The sedan also has the same, had thesame like matte black finish on it.
(16:18):
It had a red leather interior,not bright red, but pretty red.
The whole thing really worked for me.
I mean, I just got it init, got in it and drove it.
As I say, it was the third ofthe Genesis that I'd driven.
(16:50):
I think I drove it faster than any ofthe other cars, and that reflects how
comfortable it was at those speeds.
When I got out of it, I walked all theway around it for the first time and
realized it was a three and a half literV6, which I would have guessed if you'd
have asked me, but I'd literally notthought about it before I just got in and
hoofed it and the hoofing of it, it was.
(17:14):
and better than my old AMG Benz.
Well, you would hope so, wouldn't you?
But 3.
5 turbo AWD, I did not expect it tohave AMG like king of the road, kind of.
Planted quality in, in,you know, sweeping turns.
(17:34):
I mean, I guess it'sturbocharged, isn't it?
But you know, the enthusiasm thatit lunged forward at high speeds
was, was really, really impressive.
I left it in sport mode the whole time.
I didn't mess aroundwith the sport plus mode.
Um, you can do.
Custom modes, this is trueof all three of the Genesis.
(17:55):
The Sport Plus turns the tractioncontrol off automatically.
This and the Coupe had Sport Plus.
The Range Rovery onedidn't have Sport Plus.
It just had like a sport kindof mode, which makes sense.
I would program my own settings withthese, but you need to drive the car
further and get more familiar with thembefore you could really, uh, you could
(18:15):
really choose that, that properly.
Really, the G80, it wasn't like I,it was like, wow, it blew me away.
This was all, you know, I probablyhad more fun driving the Elantra N and
definitely the Ioniq N was far moreof a, you know, product that's looking
towards 2030 rather than a productthat's looking towards 1990, but I'm
(18:40):
a child of the late 20th century.
And I'm also an old man now.
And I love a big, fast sedan andthat Genesis just did everything
that it says on the tin.
And I'm sitting here now thinking,you know, there was one question
was one of the things, categorieswe had to vote on was if it was
our money, what would we buy?
And, you know, without a moment'shesitation, it would be that G80.
(19:03):
New or used, you know, and I wouldheartily recommend if you, if you
just need a car to just do thejob and you can drop 80 grand.
There's never going to be, whetherit's Goodwood, whether it's a track
day, whether it's moving your familyaround, whether it's fitting it in the
car park, whether it's a weekend inTahoe, there's never, there's never
(19:25):
going to be a piece of bullshit that youthrow at that G80 that he doesn't wear.
better than you ever thought it could.
It's got the sinews and skeletonof a Teutonic saloon, but with
this really cool, kind of Bentley,kind of Korean, kind of pass me
the wasabi kind of thing going on.
(19:47):
Yeah, and I know wasabiis not Korea, right?
I said that because ithas a different feel.
It has, you know, the skyline wasnot the same as a Porsche Turbo.
It might have had the same notionabout it, four wheel drive,
turbocharge, ultimate performance.
(20:08):
You know, all of that might have beenthe same, but the Skyline was done in a
uniquely Japanese kind of way, and Genesisare walking towards, arguably, or already
there with that kind of design language.
So, uh, Bravo.
Most enjoyable.
And thanks for bringing the car.
(20:39):
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