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1K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  satheian 
#1 ·
Since the earth cooled, there have really been only two reasonably affordable rear-drive sport coupes to choose from: the Ford Mustang and the Chevrolet Camaro, both of which are great cars but carry, well, baggage.

Out of nowhere — actually, Korea — comes the Hyundai Genesis coupe, a sleekly curried, sophisticated, and muscular two-door with a face that looks like it's biting the mailman. Based on the mechanicals of the award-winning Genesis sedan, the Genesis coupe has put the Korean company in a whole different conversation with all the young dudes. Where once the Hyundai badge represented serviceable transportation and Asian quality on the cheap, the coupe represents boy-racer passion, inordinate fun, and a driver's-license death wish. Not since the original Datsun (Nissan) 240-Z has a sport coupe so recalibrated a company's rep.

The marquee package is the sick-with-performance SE, with a naturally aspirated 3.8-liter, 306-hp V-6 under the sloping hood, a six-speed automatic or manual, limited-slip differential, catgut suspension, Brembo brakes, and nineteen-inch wheels (and a slew of comfort and convenience features that Hyundai kicks in just because it can), all for about $30,000. Zero to sixty mph stomps by in about 5.5 seconds, and the thing can lay down fourteen-second quarter-mile ET's all day long. In the dram-of-adrenaline-per-dollar equation, the SE has it all over the Nissan 370Z and the Infiniti G37.

Shrewdly, Hyundai also sells a stripped-out, bare-bones, dirt-cheap version of the car, aimed at the influential tuner community. The 2.0T R-Spec (turbocharged, 210-hp four-cylinder for about $24,000) pleads to be modified, and the first modification that's called for is to replace the stock turbo with a leaf-blower-sized unit that — with other reinforcements — can squeeze another 200 hp out of the car. Light fuse. Get away.

The Genesis coupe is kind of like the public option: Suddenly there's an affordable alternative to the rising costs, introducing competition into a market that's been too safe and comfortable for the incumbents.



 
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