MAKE WAY FOR HYUNDAI
Korean carmaker has come a long way since learning lessons with Excel
For the luxury car buyer in America, the standard driveway splendido usually has one of these logos mounted smack on the front: a three-pointed star (Mercedes-Benz), a blueand-white roundel (BMW), four interconnected rings (Audi), a leaping cat ( Jaguar) or the letter L in a chrome circle (Lexus, a made-up name that’s supposed to connote grand luxe).
These are brands whose millions of dollars’ worth of advertising try to make one point: Buy one of these cars and you are buying the world-class standard in terms of prestige, workmanship and, well, snob appeal. It is the outward expression of the upwardly mobile (or the already arrived). Drive up to a gala fundraiser in a BMW 740i and the valet parker will snap to attention.
Wait. What’s that, right behind the BMW? A Hyundai, um, Equus?
What’s Hyundai doing in the middle of all this? Hyundai? Maker of the execrable Excel tin can of 20 years ago? Hyundai is the Korean carmaker that took the lessons of the awful Excel to heart, went back to the drawing board and got serious about making good cars. It is now the newest darling of the car world. Its Sonata sedan gets rave reviews in the family sedan class, the toughest segment of the market, one dominated for years by Toyota’s Camry and Honda’s Accord.
Over the past three or four years, Hyundai has been aggressively moving up market, crashing the exclusive parties hosted by the Germans and the Japanese. Hyundai is saying, “Hey, fellas, we’ve come to play on your croquet pitch. Don’t mind us. And please pass the canapes.”
First entry
Hyundai’s first foray into this well-mannered gathering was the Genesis, a four-door sedan introduced for the 2009 model year and aimed squarely at the 5-series BMW, a nearluxury sedan that had never heard of Hyundai until a Genesis gobbled it up one day.
Genesis buyers had a choice of 3.8-liter V6 or 4.6-liter V8 engines and the cars, while somewhat derivative of any number of Japanese luxo sedans, were and are terrific performers that sold for thousands less than comparable BMW models. Now Hyundai has the Equus, its top-of-the-line autobahn cruiser that has a starting price of around $58,000.
And the Equus is aimed, like a 105mm tank gun, right at the top sellers we’ve all come to know and love — MercedesBenz S-class, BMW 7-series, Audi A8 and Lexus LS460. These four veterans of the Tiffany clientele circuit all have wildly varying prices, ranging from the Lexus low of $67,000 to $75,000 and up to the Mercedes range of $92,000 to $159,000. Which then raises the question: If you opt for the Equus, are you getting a less expensive Benz or bimmer?
Equus comes in two models — Signature and Ultimate. We drove the Ultimate, and with its Ultimate package (more about this later), it had a sticker price of $66,650. On first impression, this is a generic upscale car that takes bits and pieces of design from just about every expensive sedan and blends them into an unobtrusive whole. Nothing really stands out. It has a conservative grille (somewhat resembles Mercedes) and a sweeping, smooth body style that could have come from design ateliers in Stuttgart, Coventry or Tokyo.
Conveniences
As befits a car that aspires to Benz-like loftiness, the Equus has all the mod cons you’d ever need — from the Lexicon (did Lexus approve this name?) sound system with its 17 speakers, to the wood trim, the chilled and heated front and rear seats, radar cruise control (keeps your distance from the car ahead of you on the freeway), and electronic stability control. The Ultimate package goes a step further and pampers you with rear seat dropdown lighted vanity mirrors and, trumpet fanfare here, a small fridge nestled into the console that separates the two rear seats.
Then there’s a unique feature that must appeal to all those Korean executives who have been trading in their German wheels for new Equuses (Equi?): It’s what Hyundai calls the “first class right rear seat: leg support and massage system.” It’s like a BarcaLounger that fetched up in the back of a big sedan. And there are switches on the left side of the front passenger seat back, so the driver can move that seat forward and out of the way of the by-now-snoozing executive who has folded his weary body into that soothing slumberland. It helps to have a chauffeur.
Out on the road, the Equus is like its competitors — it rides smoothly and quietly — but in some ways it’s skin deep. A few years ago, I spent a couple of thousand miles with a Mercedes S550, and the big Benz felt tighter and had more feedback from the road than does the Equus. Nonetheless, the Hyundai will get up and romp down the freeway, courtesy of that 5-liter, 429-horsepower V8 and the eight-speed automatic transmission. And that Mercedes cost around $130,000. Was it twice as good as the $66,000 Equus? Not for me.
So maybe the only question is: When you pull up in a Hyundai Equus, will the valet parker treat you with respect? Will your friends understand?