A couple weeks ago at the LA Auto Show, I was checking out the Hyundai Genesis concept coupe. You might ask, why the hell is Eric writing about a Hyundai? I too never thought there would a time where I might remotely give a shit about a Hyundai, but maybe, just maybe, it might be time. I ran into my buddy Simon Kim who works at Hyundai earlier this year at the annual Stillen open house thingy they have. I knew Simon when he used to work at Dynamic Autosports back in 1996 or so. He was telling me about a rear wheel drive Hyundai prototype coupe that he’s been working on. Catching up with Simon was cool, but what really caught me off guard was that he said it would share the same power plant as the EVO X. The GEMA engines are a engineering and manufacturing partnership with Chrysler, Mitsubishi, and Hyundai. That’s right: turbo and RWD. Hyundai seems to be picking up where the Japanese manufacturers left off with the S15 Silvia (240sx) and Toyota with the Soarer in Japan (SC300).
Hyundai is one of those companies that has been only able to appeal to the people with 0% financing, 0 payments for the first X amount of years, and a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty. Hopefully this will be a cool little car. Simon says it will be. Since it’s a Hyundai, you know the dealership will let it go for like $3000 under sticker too. It sounds like a $20,000 RWD turbo coupe is on the way. If it is $20k, I think I’m going to pick one up to replace my S13 that I regret selling so I can beat the shit out of it. A Cosworth EVO X engine, GT2871, and probably a Nissan rear end (you know the Hyundai rear end is going to break) would be fun. Why not? It’ll be 0 down, 0% interest, and 0 payments for 24 months!!
A little Tiburon here.
A little G37 and EVO X here.
A little RX-8 and F430 here.
You can’t actually expect a Korean manufacturer to have original styling, can you? Overall it’s not too bad looking despite it’s styling cues coming obviously from other cars. I can live with kim chee breath on the weekends. The last thing I need is ANOTHER car, but I miss RWD turbo power. I realized that all my cars have straight 6 engines now (2jz, RB26, and 7mgte) and they’re only fun on the freeway or on long tracks like Buttonwillow. Believe it or not, you get tired of it sometimes. You gotta have a small agile car that you can throw around sometimes to have fun.