Hyundai ’s new premium brand takes on the toughest segment with its oldest car

MODEL TESTED 2.2 CRDi LUXURY LINE

PHOTOGRAPHY MAX EDLESTON

Price £38,510 ●Power 197bhp ●Torque 325lb ft ●0-60mph 7.2sec ●30-70mph in fourth 8.2sec ●Fuel economy 43.7mpg ●CO2 emissions 171g/km ●70-0mph 45.5m

The main question with any new model from a new brand like Genesis inevitably is: what is it? With the G70, Hyundai’s premium luxury spin-off brand wants to take the fight to the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. So the short answer is ‘a compact executive saloon’, but it appears that even Genesis itself has gone back and forth on what exactly it wants the G70 to be.

You see, even though it is introduced as an all-new car over here, it is actually a facelift – albeit a pretty major one – of the G70 that was introduced in the US in 2018. That was very clearly positioned as the keen driver’s choice, even offering the option of a manual gearbox, which, especially in the US, still shows you’re serious about appealing to the driving enthusiast.

The trouble is, making a car with a dynamic chassis that appeals to the driving enthusiast is by no means a guarantee of commercial success: just ask Alfa Romeo and Jaguar how the Giulia and XE are doing. Consequently, Genesis’s other offerings in Europe, such as the GV80 SUV we road tested in September, have been positioned squarely in the luxury corner.

As the G70 undergoes our full road test, we ask whether it has the ultimate luxury to trouble the C-Class or the poise to out-handle the 3 Series, or indeed whether it will be filed under ‘likeable also-rans’ with the Giulia and XE.

DESIGN AND ENGINEERING

★★★★☆

From the off, it’s looking like the G70’s sports saloon ambitions have taken a back seat. That much-touted manual gearbox is nowhere to be found, and nor is the potent 3.3-litre V6 that is offered in the US. Instead, we get to choose from 194bhp and 241bhp versions of a 2.0-litre turbo petrol and a 197bhp 2.2-litre diesel, as tested here. All are rear-wheel drive and paired with an eight-speed torque-converter automatic gearbox that was developed in-house.

Despite the modest 18in wheels on our Luxury Line car, there are plenty of sporty cues. The slightly generic headlights of the pre-facelift model have been replaced with Genesis’s signature twin LED slits and, together with the ‘crest’ grille and multitude of character lines and creases, there is a certain arachnoid aggression to the design. Regardless of the detailing, in a world of SUVs, there is something refreshing about a classically proportioned three-box saloon with a long bonnet and a low profile. To show that Genesis is serious about succeeding in Europe, there is also a Shooting Brake version, even if the rear end looks a little tacked on, with more than a hint of mid-noughties Subaru Impreza estate about it.