Why is the coupe a "Genesis?"

[mkaresh]

The more I think about the Genesis coupe, the more I wonder why they also gave it the Genesis name.

What does this car share with the Genesis sedan?

None of the exterior. None of the interior I can see. It's smaller and considerably lighter. The feature content is lower, and the price is much lower. The target market is totally different. The desired image is considerably different.

I suppose that some bits of the platform are shared, but no more than a Nissan 370Z shares with an Infiniti M45.

So why the shared name?

Because these cars are so different, I'm tracking them as two distinct models at TrueDelta.com. I don't do this with the Infiniti G37, BMW 3, and so forth because in those cases the coupe and sedan are much more similar.

 

[Blackout]

They probably gave it the Genesis moniker because these cars are supposed to be the rebirth of Hyundai so with their first two brand new models they're trying and make everybody forget about the old Hyundai.

 

[mkaresh]

Perhaps. But they're not going to stop offering the Accent, Elantra, Sonata, etc., are they? And those cars aren't bad cars.

 

[Blackout]

Perhaps. But they're not going to stop offering the Accent, Elantra, Sonata, etc., are they? And those cars aren't bad cars.

They will still offer them as well but I would say to look for a decent jump in quality of each vehicle once each one gets it's next update. I'm mostly excited for the Equus if we ever get it.

 

[John]

They share the same chassis IIRC, with the coupes being shortened. They're being targeted as a coupe and sedan tag team aiming to a higher end market.

 

[beowulf]

I could see the Genesis moniker become a symbol of Hyundai's more upscale breed of cars.

 

[PriorityHyundaiVA]

All of you are on point

 

[ConceptVBS]

A quote from an Interview done with Hyundai USA CEO, John Krafcik.

Abbreviated, JK .

AG: Getting back to the question a lot of readers sent me -- I swear it's not just me, the readers are saying this -- it seems that the path you guys are forging is for a Genesis brand.

JK: Well, I think for sure the path we're forging is for a family of rear-wheel-drive products that will share a Genesis nameplate.... We call it a grouping strategy. You see it also with Elantra and Elantra Touring, right? Elantra was a product that was focused from a development point of view for the US, Korea and China markets. The Elantra Touring was a variance of that platform really focused for Europe. And when we decided to bring that product to the US, because we thought -- you know I'm a big fan of wagons and two-box design. We thought it made a heck of a lot more sense to just share the Elantra nameplate, and kind of extend that brand. It's very expensive to develop new nameplates. And when you can find ways to group them together, especially for a brand like us -- I mean, Aaron, we're a 3% market share brand. Three percent. We have ten models. And each of those names is extremely expensive to nurture and grow. So, with Genesis, we thought, you know what? They're the same platform, they're both rear-wheel-drive. If we add another rear-wheel-drive car to our lineup, it's going to share a Genesis name as well. And we can build a little -- sub-brand is too strong a word, I prefer "family". It's a family of products that kind of share that kind of DNA that's a little bit different from the rest of the Hyundai lineup.

And the best one....

AG: I wonder what sort of third product might have a Genesis nameplate on it.

JK: Well, let's think about what the possibilities might be, and then perhaps you or your readers could give us some feedback. One idea which we've talked about is, in the Korean domestic market, we've had for some time a kind of an uber-flagship vehicle called the Equus ["eh-koos"]. There is now a variant of that coming to market in Korea that's kind of a long-wheelbase super-Genesis. We are looking at the possibility of bringing that to the US market. It would be a relatively low-volume vehicle. That is one possibility. We've also got studies ongoing, other variants of the rear-wheel-drive platform. When you have a rear-wheel-drive platform you want to use it as often as possible, to help amortize your costs. So we've looked at higher H-point, higher seating position variants. You can imagine a vehicle like an Infiniti FX. We've studied products like this one. That one also may be a little bit further away, but [it's] something that we're thinking about. And then we've also had the discussion, what about a pure and proper two-seat roadster rear-wheel-drive vehicle, which is also something that we're looking at. Aaron's giving me two thumbs up on that one.

http://cars.about.com/od/detoursanddiversions/a/jkrafcik_pt1.htm

 

[mkaresh]

They share the same chassis IIRC, with the coupes being shortened. They're being targeted as a coupe and sedan tag team aiming to a higher end market.

I could see this if the coupe was contented and priced similar to the sedan, but it's not. To have cars share a brand, IMHO they've got to be more similar than these two cars are.

Otherwise, you have two possible outcomes:

1. The brand fails to develop a clear identity, so it remains a weak brand.

2. One variant dominates, and the brand becomes associated with it, and awareness of the other variant suffers.

If "Genesis" was to denote a family, then each member would have a second name all to itself. Or at a minimum one car would--like Elantra and Elantra Touring (which if it goes anywhere will probably become known as the Touring), or Camry and Camry Solara (which few people recognize as a Camry).

I do see that Hyundai thinks they're saving marketing dollars this way. But I suspect that these savings will prove illusory.

It's much more common for two similar cars to have separate brands: CL and TL from Acura, CL and S from Mercedes, A4 and A5 from BMW.