Sat in the Equus today

[Teasip]

Attended the State Fair of Texas today to watch the Longhorns go through the motions again but beforehand had the opportunity to scope out the Equus in person. Beautiful lines and appreciably larger than the Genesis which was parked nearby. Interior was VERY roomy, especially in the back (and if you moved the front passenger forward without their realizing that you had access to the front passenger seat from the rear). Comments that I heard from others were that it was good looking, too expensive for a Hyundai, very nice on the inside, and "this is a Hyundai?".

Overall, once the daughter is out of the house and I can reclaim my garage spot I will have to give this very serious consideration. Maybe I can practice with a Genesis in the interim.

 

[Fulorian]

Wait, there was an Equus out and about in Dallas?

CURSE ME FOR HIDING INSIDE DURING OU WEEKEND!

 

[xradman]

I just got back from Fairfax Hyundai where they had an Equus demonstration. I got a chance to sit in the car and play around a bit with the controls and seats. The car was in black with black interior.

The interior is about the size of a BMW 7-series or Mercedes S-series. However, the large center stack in the back makes it seem smaller than it is. I had no problem connecting my iPhone 3GS to the car. Disappointingly, the audio system does not support BT streaming. The USB connector will play mp3 from memory stick. It even displayed Korean file names and tags. It did display some Chinese characters, but not all (I wonder if it's incompatibility with certain unicode fonts). It does not display album art. I did not have an iPod cable to see how that connects.

Despite it's size, the rear seat can only recline ~30 degrees. There really isn't enough leg room to use the foot rest, unless you push the front passenger seat all the way forward. The rear monitors have relatively poor resolution. It would have been much better if they could have incorporated 2 overhead flip down monitors or better iPad integration with perhaps a dock attached to the back of the front head rests.

Outer design looks pretty good, except for that ugly front grill with wart like camera. They need to come up with a better design or get rid of the camera altogether. The trunk is huge. It can probably swallow several golf bags.

People seemed impressed with the overall quality of the vehicle. Would I buy one? I think it's very nice, but I'll probably wait to see how the next version with the 5.0 liter/8-speed turns out.

 

[MrB0462]

xradman

The version you saw is designed not be be driven by the owner in most instances. It is a corporate limo type vehicle which the Koreans feel they need for the Asian market in particular. This includes that strange hood ornament which emulates the Spirit of Ectasy on a Rolls-Royce. Image is very important in the far-East.

Most times the front passenger seat will not be occupied and slid forward to allow maximum legroom in the back. The real evaluation, IMO, is sitting in and driving the non-executive version. Lincoln had a version of their Town Car with a rear seat power control for the front passenger seat to increase the leg room of those be driven.

 

[xradman]

xradman

The version you saw is designed not be be driven by the owner in most instances. It is a corporate limo type vehicle which the Koreans feel they need for the Asian market in particular. This includes that strange hood ornament which emulates the Spirit of Ectasy on a Rolls-Royce. Image is very important in the far-East.

Most times the front passenger seat will not be occupied and slid forward to allow maximum legroom in the back. The real evaluation, IMO, is sitting in and driving the non-executive version. Lincoln had a version of their Town Car with a rear seat power control for the front passenger seat to increase the leg room of those be driven.

I don't think it was the Korean version. It did not have the hood ornament. The wart that I was commenting on is the front camera.

 

[MrB0462]

I did mean to imply that it was a Korean version. The bascis of that model are the same whether its for their domestic or our (foreign) market.