jz-97-c7

loooovvvveeeee it...i know there's a long way to go from a ps but damn so far so good

F23A4

@ the first statement and with the second.

JediMindTricks

i like it. but i like the smaller grille in the concept (orange/black) car better.

titan

I like the black CGI. The grill there fixes what's wrong with the orange concept.

chill_dog

I prefer the original concept.

Infamous425

like a poor man's audi A5

charliemike

Guys this isn't even close ... This is a really bad mashup.

Moog-Type-S

Wow! Hyundai really dumbed it down.
The orange concept is 100x better.

charliemike

:wall:

JediMindTricks

this page takes forever to load with all those pics...

jeebus. those LEDs i charliemike's avy are HAWT.

AsianRage

Oh no, please don't! This car is incomparable to the A5, especially the non-concept "version".

chungkopi

That Black One Isn't Even Done By Hyundai!!!

chungkopi

Again!! That Was Just A Rendered Speculation By Some Magazine!!!!

SSMTL01

I dont give a shit what it looks like if it has RWD and boooooost.

BraveDemon

That black CGI is really old; I saw it months ago, definitely before the Orange concept was unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show in 2007. And I believe it was an artists rendering, not an official hyundai rendering.

JediMindTricks

^thank goodness.

yohan81718

^ exactly my thought..

regarding the thread title, is this really i35?? i thought they called it genesis coupe or bk (prototype name)

charliemike

I think that's mad KDM yo

probmxstyle

Caught in Sweden, the most interesting pic is of the engine bay, confirming a turbo inline four.

Not to keen on the automatic shifter, I'm sure there will be a manual though.

h2o-pr00f

I hope it gets an inch or so less wheel gap

Costco

I really hope they don't go the Acura route and change to the wannabe luxo letter-followed-by-a-number names. It would confuse the masses more with even less brand identity. And wouldn't Nissan raise hell about the i35 name (Infiniti I35) like they did with BMW about Z cars?

They just need to come up with another name for the coupe.... Hyundai Genesis is kinda generic but it sounds imposing (good for the big sedan IMO) and something else for the coupe, anything but i35.

Looks really interesting though, but whats up with those gauges? They seem diagonally crossed from the angle in the pic, I wonder how that would look from the driver's perspective.

chill_dog

The dude in that pic looks a little peeved that the pic is being taken.

The shifter area looks a little cheap, but overall, the car has potential.

Brandon24pdx

The production version is supposed to be unveiled at the NY auto show in March. I think the working name is still "Genesis Coupe"

Costco

I never thought I'd say this but Acura needs to start looking at what Hyundai's doing and get some of their ideas. Maybe they can mount the K23 longitudinally and put it in a smallish RWD coupe....

Brandon24pdx

JediMindTricks

^what's so funny?

and +1 for hoping hyundai doesn't use the alpha-numerical names.

Costco

^^Absurd, I know. But Acura came out with that lame 2009 TSX concept. I honestly hope it doesn't sell for shit, it might be the kick in the head Acura needs. At this point I'm taking Hyundai more seriously because they're not all talk, they're actually making interesting cars.

I can't see how the new RL would sell any better than the current one either. Terrible design... I honestly can't wait for them to completely fubar the TL, then their sales numbers will tank.

charliemike

I don't think any of the materials you see there are anything more than black electrical tape ... I imagine this will be much closer to the Genesis sedan than the Sonata.

AsianRage

Look closely

charliemike

I did. The inconsistency of the silver trim around the shifter indicates to me that it is not anything like the finished product.

Costco

Look more closely. There are expanses of black tape everywhere, and who knows if this is the final result or just another test mule, but you can see the shape of the center stack and most of the shifter area is revealed. I think you should put on your reading glasses.





I have a feeling that last remark is gonna bite me back later on.... oh well

BraveDemon

Well any interior masked in electrical tape will look cheap.

From what I can tell:

1. Silver trim around the cup holder edges - possibly real metal? Looks good though, better than the cup holder in my TL-S. And also speaks wonders about Hyundai now, meaning that they pay attention to even the smallest details.

2. Same silver trim around the Shifter panel - again looks better than my TL-S

3. Push open/close lower center stack cover; hides the DC plug/cigarette lighter thingy and possibly coin holder? Similar design to the current Acuras, and better than what Hyundai has offered in the past.

4. The seats look damn comfortable and seems to offer a ton of lumbar support. But are those buttons on the door console (below the arm rest on the door) the seat adjustment buttons? Might possibly be the gas tank/trunk buttons. Interesting placement of the buttons, if they are.

5. Why isn't their a blinker on the passenger side mirror? Only makes me believe further that this is just a test mule and that the final production will not necessarily look like this mule.

I dunno. Nothing about it screams cheap to me. And this is, after all, just a test mule. If anything, it tells me good things are to come from Hyundai - esp the I4 Turbo engine.

And I kinda like the wheels; they remind me of O.Z. wheels.

BENDER08

if it looked like the original orange concept iwhi

GreenMonster

Guys, there are production pics here:

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...hlight=genesis

yohan81718

^ wrong.. tiburon and genesis coupe are two separate lineups

charliemike

I forgot how good that car looks! Go Hyundai!

msl82

yea, i thought that pictures were the production model. Notice the front lower mesh grills and identical exhaust.

But, I don't think that exhaust design is good, cause it will limit the design of aftermarket exhaust.

GreenMonster

Correct... but the pics are of the genesis coupe (still to be named)...

The tib and genesis coupe threads where accidently merged...

There's a reason why a ford mustang is in the picture... since the genesis coupe is hyundai's "mustang"... RWD w/ 300hp...

TMQ

It's very interesting, talking about Hyundai/Kia's corporate culture clash with the American management:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...pStories_ssi_5

My Way or the Highway at Hyundai
The Korean carmaker and its Kia subsidiary are trying to move upscale in the U.S.—but culture clashes, management turmoil, and strategic discord are making for a bumpy ride

by David Welch, David Kiley and Moon Ihlwan

On the morning of Monday, Feb. 4, about 20 of the top executives at the Irvine (Calif.) headquarters of Kia Motors America left their warm offices to stand outside in near-freezing cold. They were awaiting the arrival of Byung Mo Ahn, the president of Kia Motors. The group organized itself into a receiving line and stayed in formation for more than 15 minutes until Ahn arrived in a chauffeur-driven Kia Amanti sedan.

Although some of the executives were shivering, it would have been bad form to return inside: Standing to greet top brass is customary at Hyundai Motor, Kia's Korean parent. After spending a full week in Irvine, Ahn performed another ritual that has become common at the company: sacking the American leadership team. On Feb. 8 he axed Len Hunt, president and CEO of Kia Motors America, and Ian Beavis, marketing vice-president.

It marked the fourth shakeup in three years for Kia's American operation. The U.S. unit of Hyundai, meanwhile, has churned through four top executives in five years. Many of the departures have come at awkward times. Hunt and Beavis got the news at the airport as they were about to fly from Irvine to an annual dealer meeting in San Francisco. According to several sources, Hunt's predecessor, Peter Butterfield, was dismissed during a dinner meeting with dealers at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas—between the entrée and dessert. The companies declined to comment on any of these executive departures.

The management shakeups at the American divisions of Hyundai and Kia—two once-separate manufacturers that are now essentially run as one company—come at a critical period. Both brands, which were originally marketed to American consumers as utilitarian econoboxes, are trying to move upscale and sell sedans that can compete with Cadillac and BMW. They are also banking on rapid growth in the U.S. Next year, for example, Kia is opening a plant in Georgia that was built on the optimistic assumption that the company could sell at least 370,000 cars in the U.S. annually. But sales momentum has been slowing. Kia sold 305,000 cars in America in 2007, 13% shy of its target of 350,000. Given their aggressive growth plans, both Hyundai and Kia "need North American auto expertise," says James N. Hall, president of 2953 Analytics, an auto industry consultancy near Detroit.

The problem is that the companies keep booting out American talent. And many of the American executives who do stay find parent Hyundai Motor's corporate culture to be suffocating. According to several current and former managers, Hyundai Chairman Chung Mong Koo, Kia's Ahn, and other top executives run the companies in a far more authoritarian style than do most American CEOs. The critics say his team micromanages details, rarely listens to advice from local managers, and displays little tolerance for disagreement. "It's a very feudal approach to management," says Bob Martin, a former sales executive who left Hyundai in 2005 to become a consultant at CarLab, a Santa Ana (Calif.) consulting firm. "There's a king, he rules, and everyone curries his favor. It's very militaristic."
"PUSHING ALL THE TIME"

While Chung's top-down management style might rub some Americans the wrong way, his long-term track record in the U.S. is impressive. Under his leadership, Hyundai has nearly doubled sales in the country since 2000, to 467,000 cars last year. Kia has posted almost identical growth.

Chung, who was convicted of embezzlement in Korea last year but had his prison sentence suspended, has won praise for creating a highly disciplined company. When quality complaints started to plague Hyundai during the 1990s, he ordered engineers to attack the problem. By 2004, Hyundai had soared up the rankings in quality surveys. Unlike Detroit's Big Three, Hyundai and Kia have fewer management layers to hold up decisions. "I can see where Americans would feel uncomfortable," says Alice Amsden, a professor of political economy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has written books about Korea and other developing Asian economies. "American management is used to a different style. But Hyundai deserves a lot of credit."

Both Hyundai and Kia, speaking through representatives at their American units, said that all of the American managers who have left the companies in recent years were treated fairly. Even some of the executives who have departed praise the companies' management culture. "Being aggressive doesn't make them bad," says Robert Cosmai, who was CEO of Hyundai's American unit for two years before getting fired in January, 2006.

Boldness is part of Hyundai Motor's DNA. Like many of Korea's early corporate patriarchs, founder Chung Ju Yung had a simple strategy: Build factories first, worry about sales later. Starting with a small construction company in 1947, he moved into autos, shipbuilding, and other industries. Hyundai became one of the most successful Korean chaebols, family-controlled conglomerates with close ties to the government. But it was broken up into several pieces in the late 1990s in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Last year, the global revenues of Hyundai and Kia grew 7%, to $63.5billion.

Chung Ju Yung's heirs continue to run Hyundai Motor, and his business philosophy still prevails. In America, the two companies often establish sales targets based on what their auto plants can produce—a persistent source of tension with local managers. Several past executives say that Hyundai and Kia have set unhealthily aggressive sales goals that are causing inventory to pile up. Hyundai has about 32,000 Sonata sedans parked in lots around its Montgomery (Ala.) plant with no orders from dealers. "The production-oriented style of pushing all the time won't work anymore," says Kim Ki Chan, professor of auto economics at Catholic University of Korea.

One consequence of this philosophy is that both Hyundai and Kia have been forced to sell more cars to rental fleets—a practice that tends to make brands lose cachet with buyers. But consumer psychology is something that Hyundai Motor has never mastered, says consultant Hall. At bottom, it has always had the mindset of a manufacturer, not a marketer. Many of the products made by Chung Ju Yung's original conglomerate, such as locomotive engines and tanks, were sold to business. Hyundai Motor's leadership team "lacks marketing savvy," says Yoo Young Kwon, a Seoul-based auto analyst at Prudential Investment & Securities (PRU). "What they need in the U.S. is to let American executives implement marketing strategy in a sustainable way."

But handing over the reins to American marketers is not something that seems to come naturally to Hyundai Motor. After walking through the receiving line on that Monday morning in February, Kia CEO Ahn spent the day criticizing the company's advertising. The brand has marketed itself as sporty and fun as opposed to the more serious Hyundai. In one of the meetings, Ahn said he hated an ad depicting a Kia dealer doing an impression of the film Flashdance, dancing wildly as the jingle "He's a maniac, maniac, and he's selling like he's never sold before" plays. Ahn halted the spots and said Kia's message should lose the campy humor.
HEAVY HANDLERS

Four days later, Kia America CEO Hunt and marketing vice-president Beavis lost their jobs. The firings came as a surprise to the Kia dealers gathered in San Franciso's Moscone Center. Some say they're worried that the brand's marketing message will become diffuse. "It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence," says Ed Tonkin, a Portland (Ore.) Kia dealer who opened one of the brand's original U.S. stores. "The danger is that every time you get a new person, they will go with different marketing and advertising."

Since the meeting, Ahn has taken over Hunt's old office and expanded it. He has tried to mollify dealers with offers of increased corporate support. Kia and Hyundai are also making a greater effort to improve the morale of disgruntled American executives. Kia spokesman Alex Fedorak says many of them get training from a Korean culture coach.

Cross-cultural outreach is long overdue. Several Americans expressed resentment at the so-called coordinators, the Korean overseers whose job it is to keep an eye on American managers. Culled from the ranks of up-and-coming stars in Seoul, they sit alongside American managers, monitoring decision-making and results. Both Hyundai and Kia have about a dozen coordinators. They must agree to major decisions—and sometimes smaller ones, such as whether to award vacations to dealers who hit sales goals. Japanese automakers also have coordinators in their U.S. operations, but they play more of an advisory role while the American executives have free reign to make major decisions.

Mark Barnes, chief operating officer at Volkswagen Group of America (VLKAY), who worked as a sales executive at Hyundai Motor America until 2006, says the coordinators applied pressure to achieve targets. "If you were subpar, they would ask what you're going to do to get your numbers up," Barnes says. During some conference calls, he adds, the coordinators would speak Korean to managers in Seoul, all but shutting out the Americans.

Kia spokesman Fedorak says the coordinators serve a valuable purpose: bringing the corporate vision from Seoul to America, then relaying the needs of the local market back to headquarters. Since few American employees speak Korean, the coordinators also act as translators. While acknowledging that Kia has a Confucian-influenced corporate culture in which "father knows best," he said this was not the main source of conflict with American executives. Instead, he attributed the tension to Korean managers' greater comfort with "stretch goals."

At the moment, the stretch goal that is stressing out American executives at Hyundai Motor is the company's insistence on trying to move into the low end of the luxury business. For years, executives in the U.S. have been telling their counterparts in Seoul that the two brands are not strong enough to sell for much above the price range of $12,000 to $25,000. But their warnings have been ignored. Chung believes that going upscale is essential for Hyundai and Kia. The weak dollar has hurt profits, and concessions made to the Korean unions are eroding the company's cost advantage. So both Hyundai and Kia have launched a slate of vehicles priced near or above $30,000. In 2005, for example, Kia released the Amanti (Ahn's limo) with a mandate to sell 20,000 a year.

The company didn't come close to hitting that number, selling just 5,500 of the sedans, priced between $25,000 and $30,000, last year. Still, nobody expects Chung to heed the advice of some American managers and pull back. "The top-down management style hasn't changed at Hyundai," says Lee Hang Koo, auto industry specialist at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade. "This is bound to lead to cultural clashes with Americans. We've seen management churn in the past, and there's no reason to believe it will stop."

Welch is BusinessWeek's Detroit bureau chief. Kiley is a senior correspondent in BusinessWeek's Detroit bureau . Moon is BusinessWeek's Seoul bureau chief .

BraveDemon

It's just Korean culture.

Being a second generation Korean American I understand completely what the American officers are disgruntled about; ask any 2nd generation Korean american about their experience with their parents' culture, many will tell you that when it came to school they were overbearing, unreasonably and tyrannical. From the age of 5 we're told to become "Doctors or Lawyers;" there are no other occupations in this world to Koreans (Parents anyway) and saying that you want to be something else and failing to perform well in elementary/junior high/high school to become a Doctor or Lawyer is an insult and usually results in a beating. (for some of us anyway). Harsh? Better believe it, it's damn harsh. But does it work? Well, I'm a 3rd year in law school now, and have a position at a law firm, so yeah, I guess it does.

It's the same situation with Hyundai America; Hyundai Korea says "go lux, or go home," you better damn believe that Hyundai America better listen to the Koreans, because they won't hesitate to send their USA execs home. Harsh? Yes, too damn harsh if you ask me. But does it produce results? Sure. Hyundai is tons better then they were 10 years ago, and IMO will probably grow aggressively in the next 10 years.