Motor Trend Car of The Year Finalist -Genesis

[gipp]

While I never had a doutbt that MotorTrend would choose a sports car (GT-R) over a luxury car, they supplied too much ammunition for me not to join the annual chorus of naysayers of the choice. Thier criterion is clearly spelled out but oops, somehow the Genesis did not win. Some thoughts and quotes..

Engineering- “a refined sweetheart that Deutschland’s’ & Japan’s brightest engineers “, “highly oiled, precision-bearing, spot on”. How about the only car to ever have dual 5 multi link suspensions and earn every 5 star crash rating?
Design- Let’s start with vehicle concept, execution, materials, brand/consumer perception and end by asking if you ever even looked at the Genesis as sold outside the USA that sport both front and rear Genesis wings & wheel covers that give this car anything but me too looks.
Interior- The simple elegance of the Genesis layout will look fresh long after the techno interiors of the Jag, Teutonic and Japanese Pac Man dashes have become obsolete. Any other car would have got 5 stars just for the seamlessly integrated Lexicon system, intuitive DIS, air curtains and interior dimensions alone. Big shame on MT for this missing the genesis of new interior design.
Performance-“silky yet quick 5.0 acceleration”, 113ft braking, 25mpg from a 4074 lb car.
Ease of Use-Front & rear Parking assist, worlds easiest Driver Information System with integrated voice command HD,XM/IPod/Navigation/Phone with clutter free ergonomics, speed sensitive steering & stereo, auto up rear windows and sun shade and entry proximity opening, rain sensing wipers , automatic opening 15.9 trunk and about 60 other features make this the car dummy proof.

Maybe both Safety and Value should have had a 6 star possibility-The Genesis deserves 6 stars on each.

 

[MattP]

I am right there with you.

I received my Motor Trend copy on Tuesday and eagerly flipped straight to that section. I was most disappointed to see the GT-R chosen, particularly as most dealers were not selling at MSRP , instead the "limited production" GT-R was in excess of $100K (which negates the "value" score for the GT-R).

Clearly the GT-R has awesome performance. But its impact on the marketplace at 1,500 to 2,000 cars per year is insignificant compared to the Genesis (from both a volume, price and value perspective)

I have never written to the editior of a magazine, but I think I will be in this case.....