Moving on to the interior, this is where the word “Impressive” really starts to kick in. In fact, one of my favorite sayings of late has been, “Throw a 3-pointed star onto the front and the company could have charged $30k more for it”.  Honestly, the interior of the Genesis will astound most luxury car shoppers. From the supple leather seating to the nicely appointed wood trim, it simply oozes quality. Nothing seems to have been overlooked in Hyundai’s reach for premium automotive excellence, and remember that my test vehicle was a 3.8L V6 model which actually carries a fewer features than its V8 sister.

My tester boasted the company’s optional Tech Package which brought the base price up from $39,995 to $44,995. I was tempted to list every single feature of the vehicle here simply to impress you, but was afraid that you’d fall asleep before I’d actually finished, so let me just mention a few which surprised me... Memory driver’s seat, exterior mirrors, and steering wheel. Premium leather seating with heated front seats, and driver’s side four-way power lumbar. The Genesis even features a proximity entry system with alarm and an illuminated push button start. However, by far the most impressive item is the 8 inch navigation/driver information display which features a 40GB hard drive, XM Nav traffic, front and rear backup camera, six disc DVD changer, Bluetooth and text-to-speech, with a Logic 7 Lexicon sound system. Haven’t heard of the Lexicon Logic 7 sound system? Well that’s not surprising as they only supply one other vehicle manufacturer...a little overseas company called Rolls Royce!

As I’ve said, “Impressive”. However, there’s no point in owning a penthouse apartment if it’s been built on shaky foundations, so let’s look at the platform on which the Genesis rides.

My tester was powered by an extremely smooth running 3.8L DOHC 24-valve V6, (290hp), coupled to a ZF 6-speed electronic automatic transmission with Shiftronic manual shift mode. The power from all this is then fed to the independent five-link rear axle (If you can’t go AWD, then a luxury vehicle simply has to be RWD).

Hyundai is a company which obviously believes in doing things right because the Genesis features Sachs ASD gas shock absorbers on all four corners. Ask any technician worth his salt and he’ll tell you that Sachs has a good reputation within the industry, and that certainly shows in the Genesis ride quality.

On the road, the power from the 3.8L V6 actually made me wonder why anyone would require the 368hp V8 version. Now, I drove the 4.6L V8 on the track at this year’s AJAC TestFest and would happily vouch for its incredible performance, but for normal everyday use, the V6 is more than ample.

Now so far I’ve gone on and on about how great the Genesis is and I haven’t actually mentioned one single item of disappointment. I reckon I can guess what you’re thinking here...Either the Hyundai Genesis is the best vehicle ever produced, or Crash Corrigan’s got himself a real good deal on a new Hyundai automobile. However, you’d be wrong on both scores. I literally crawled all over this vehicle in search of something which I could fault, and in truth, I had trouble finding one or two minor items. What were they? Well, the passenger side front headrest vibrated a fair amount when going over railway lines or potholes, and the steering wheel wouldn’t go far enough forward to be comfortable for my somewhat long arms (That seems to be something which I’m always complaining about with Hyundai products. Maybe they employ short-armed designers!!) So no, the new Hyundai Genesis is not the absolute pinnacle of vehicle production (I think that I’ve yet to test that vehicle). However, I truly believe that it is by far the best value luxury vehicle on the market today!