Hyundai Genesis premium brand ruled out

Hyundai's global head of PR has categorically ruled out a stand-alone luxury brand.

During the Veloster Turbo launch in Korea, motoring.com.au put the question to American-born Frank Ahrens, Director of Global PR, will Hyundai develop a premium marque?

"The story is, Hyundai has no plans for a premium brand or a sub brand, or any kind of sub brand, full stop. Anywhere in the world."

There have been various reports over the past year that Hyundai is seeking to develop a premium sub brand, not unlike Toyota has done with Lexus or Nissan is doing with Infiniti.

From an outsider's perspective the move would seem to be a natural one, particularly as Hyundai already sells V8-powered rear wheel drive vehicles such as the Genesis, Genesis Coupe and Equus luxury cars in markets such as Korea and the USA, but Ahrens' statement clearly leaves no wriggle room for Hyundai to go ahead with a plan like that.

The idea of a separate luxury brand for the Korea car maker is something the company has discussed at great length, but decided against due to what Ahrens believes is an average track record of its contemporaries. While he agrees that Lexus has been a success story for Toyota, it took many years to blossom, while Infiniti and Acura have experienced mixed results thus far.

"A few years ago we researched the idea of doing a premium brand as a separate sales channel but creating a separate premium sales channel is not always a slam dunk success," he continued.

"In America we have a phrase: Throw it to the wall and see what sticks. That doesn't mean we're definitely going do certain things. We've seen the consumer interest in Genesis in a lot of places and so it would be foolish not to keep your eyes open to all sorts of possibilities."

Though Ahrens went to great lengths to communicate that a sub brand for Hyundai is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future, Australian drivers may get to experience a growing number of Hyundai's V8-powered, rear-wheel drive vehicles.

The Hyundai Genesis Coupe is already confirmed for right hand drive (RHD) markets, such as Australia, when the second generation sports cars begin appearing in 2015, and its success will decide whether Hyundai builds more Genesis V8 vehicles for markets such as Australia and the UK.

"Right now we don't have a plan for [RHD Genesis sedan] but we are continuing to look at it. Part of it will be to see how Hyundai Genesis Coupe is received," stated Ahrens.

"There are a number of [RHD] markets but it's not a massive worldwide market. You have to aggregate. We know Australians really want RHD Genesis Coupe, and we want to give our customers the products they want."

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