Genesis could do a new GT coupe, but smaller cars unlikely
There’s little chance we’ll see a hatchback from Korean luxury brand Genesis, but a sleek two-door grand tourer could make a bit more sense.
That’s according to Genesis senior vice president, Manfred Fitzgerald, who told CarAdvice at the launch of the all-new Genesis G70 sedan that the conventional passenger car range is complete.
That range – three sedans – consists of the new G70 (competing with the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class), the G80 (currently sold as the Hyundai Genesis in Australia, competing with the A6, 5 Series and E-Class) and the G90 (sold in Korea and the US, rivalling the A8, 7 Series and S-Class).
Fitzgerald was asked if the brand would consider anything smaller than the G70, given there are big sales for the likes of the Audi A1 and A3, BMW 1 Series and 2 Series, and Mercedes-Benz’s range of A-Class, B-Class and CLA-Class models.
“I don’t want to comment on the moves of the others. We have a pretty clear strategy planned out with what we want to do. Therefore the sedan line-up is pretty complete with the G90, G80 and G70 (pictured above),” he said.
“The SUVs will follow,” Fitzgerald said, referring to the two SUVs the company has confirmed will be on sale before 2020.
“Now going lower than that, like the others are – I don’t think that is in our playbook. Other brands, due to their history and where they’re going from where they are, they might think otherwise,” he said.
“We have so much still to accomplish, and so many white spots still on the map, if you will, so there is enough room for us to play it in the conventional way.”
But that doesn’t mean that Genesis wouldn’t consider something else in its passenger car range to sit alongside the sedans and SUVs, and Fitzgerald himself has stated previously that a sleek grand tourer (GT) would offer a lot of appeal from a brand aesthetics point of view.
Pictured above: An early sketch of the Vision G, shown top of article.
“There’s so much room for us, as a new brand, to establish ourselves. A GT is obviously something that, as a designer, you most want to do – it’s the most emotional car that you can actually design, so I would not rule that out, like many other vehicles out there as well.”
Genesis, of course, was the name of a high-end sports coupe built by Hyundai a few years back, so there are grounds for a new two-door model to build itself upon.
It is clear that the Korean luxury maker is eager to explore the landscape when it comes to coupes, as it showed the Genesis Vision G concept back in 2015, while a few years earlier the luxury brand’s parent company showed off the Hyundai HND-9 Venace concept.