► The Hyundai Motor Group aims for luxury
► And Genesis is the brand to do it
► The plan behind the brand

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The luxury perceptions that underpin their badges allow the German big three to charge premium prices. But as Honda, Nissan and Toyota have painfully learned with their respective Acura, Infiniti and Lexus attempts to grab a piece of the action, cracking this profitable paradigm is very difficult.

So why does Hyundai think its Genesis brand can succeed where they failed? A decade after Genesis was spun off as a standalone brand Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) president and CEO José Muñoz says the company now has a clear understanding of how to make it a true luxury name and the tools with which to make it happen.

It starts with the product. Most Lexus models have been based on the same platforms, many of which are front-wheel drive, as their quotidian Toyota cousins. Genesis vehicles – apart from the electric GV60 – are all built on unique rear-wheel-drive platforms that endow them with not only more upscale proportions, but also better dynamics and refinement.

‘Genesis vehicles are completely different [from Hyundai and Kia models],’ says Muñoz. ‘Their platforms are different, their technology is different, and the performance is different.’

Much of that is down to years of careful work by Luc Donckerwolke, the former Lamborghini and Bentley designer hired to replace Peter Schreyer as HMG’s design chief in 2017 and now chief creative officer of Genesis. A string of acclaimed Genesis concept cars, from 2018’s Essentia through the X trilogy of 2021, previewed design elements and luxury themes that appeared on the second-generation Genesis G90 saloon and GV80 SUV.

But it’s the Genesis Magma GT pictured here that really underscores the vaulting ambition Donckerwolke now has for the brand – an ambition, crucially, shared by HMG executive chairman Euisun Chung, who, on seeing a video the Genesis boss sent of the mid-engine supercar concept driving out of the design studio, texted back a single-word response: ‘Wow!’

The Magma GT concept is more than just aspiration and wishful thinking: preliminary engineering work is underway on a production version that is likely to appear before 2030. Technical details are scarce, but sources suggest the Magma GT will be built on an aluminium monocoque chassis – less costly to produce than one made from carbonfibre – and may be powered by a turbocharged 3.2-litre V8 derived from the engine powering the Genesis GMR-001 WEC hypercar.

The exterior design of the production Magma GT is still being tweaked. ‘I think it’s a bit safe,’ Donckerwolke says. ‘I want the production car to be more polarising.’

A mid-engine supercar from a Korean car maker might seem a stretch, but it’s a vehicle type – and a business model – Donckerwolke well understands from his time at Lamborghini. He calculates the production Magma GT platform should be good for 14 years, and that the key to profitability with supercars is to introduce a constant stream of variants.

‘You launch the base car, then do an S, and a GT3, and do a roadster. Then you give the car a big midlife facelift and do it again. It’s not rocket science,’ he says. More importantly, unlike Toyota, which dithered over launching the shrieking V10-powered Lexus LFA for years and then left it to wither and die in the marketplace, Genesis is creating a brand ecosystem in which the Magma GT makes sense.

Genesis plans to homologate the Magma GT for GT3 racing and will produce GT3 race versions for sale to private teams under the direction of former Renault and Alpine Formula 1 boss Cyril Abiteboul, who has been head of Hyundai Motorsport since the end of 2023. But racing is not just about branding or credibility, says Muñoz. He sees an opportunity to use both the GT3 and WEC programmes as an opportunity to excite and engage talented young engineers at HMG.

And it’s also good business: Ferrari and Lamborghini, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche make money building, selling, and providing engineering support and spare parts for their GT3 race cars.

The Magma GT is also intended to be the halo car for the Magma sub-brand. But what is Magma?

‘Through Magma, we’re injecting adrenaline into the Genesis DNA,’ says Donckerwolke. That much seems clear from the spec sheet of the dual-motor GV60 Magma electric SUV, which makes more than 600bhp and hits 60mph in 3.4 seconds.

There will be a Magma variant of every mainstream Genesis model, but Magma isn’t just about orange paint and raw performance, Donckerwolke insists. Two other Magma concepts – the X Gran Coupe and the Wingback estate – illustrate his belief that one of the future strengths of Genesis will be its ability to quickly develop and profitably manufacture low-volume niche products as standalone Magma models. ‘I strongly believe in not having a monoculture of cars,’ Donckerwolke says.

Like the Magma GT, the X Gran Coupe and Wingback are not clickbait. Each has been carefully designed to be as easy and cost-effective to build as possible. ‘The cars are very executable very fast with a minimum level of advance investment,’ Donckerwolke insists.

The key to making all this happen is what Muñoz calls ‘the power of the group’. HMG is one of the most vertically integrated car makers in the world. It makes its own powerplants – combustion, plug-in hybrid, electric – and its own transmissions, and has 50 affiliate companies with expertise in everything from advanced robotics and AI to electronics, steel making, manufacturing equipment, finance and logistics.

That degree of vertical integration is why HMG has been able – unlike Jaguar, for example – to quickly pivot away from plans to make Genesis an EV-only brand by 2030. Going forward, every Genesis model will be available with a hybridised powertrain. That is partly why Muñoz predicts Genesis will be selling 330,000 cars a year worldwide by 2030, up from the current 225,000 or so. While North America will remain its biggest market, the company plans a concerted push into Europe, where sales are targeted to increase by 650 per cent over current levels by the end of the decade.

‘We wanted a car to compete with the S-Class,’ said Akio Toyoda of the original Lexus LS400 in 2011. ‘However, back then we did not regard Lexus as a brand, but as a distribution channel.’ And that’s a key insight. It is why Lexus vehicles were sold for many years in Japan as Toyotas, and why Lexus did not have brand or product champions at a senior level within the Toyota organisation. Many of the Toyota managers who were cycled through Lexus were short-termers who barely understood the concept of a luxury brand. HMG clearly isn’t making the same mistake with Genesis.