Test Drive: 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 2.0T 6-Speed Manual

By Kevin Harrison

Korea is an interesting place. On the one hand you have the North, which from all indications, tends to be like the fillet-o-fish at McDonalds. No one ever buys it, you don’t know what’s in it, and as a result you are sketched out by it. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-Il is like Grimace. No one knows anything about him either, and he was originally created to be evil. He even used to carry the name “Evil Grimace”. The creativeness obviously knows no bounds in the marketing department at McDonalds. Anyway, when was the last time you actually saw Grimace? Exactly. Like Kim Jong-Il, no one really knows where Grimace is or what he’s up to. This creates the same creepiness that you feel on the odd occasion that Kim Jong-Il actually shows his face to the world.

Then there’s the South which I’ve learned, thanks to a good friend moving there, has lots of ridiculously cheap alcohol, incredibly spicy food (also cheap), amazing architecture and apparently a talent for speed skating. Therefore, South Korea is kind of like a McFlurry. It’s pretty good, comes in a variety of agreeable flavours and is cheap.

Then there’s Korea’s place in the car world. As little as ten years ago, Hyundai was pretty much like North Korea. You never considered one when buying, you didn’t know anything about it and the mere thought of owning one gave you the creeps. You knew it was going to be trouble. So, you stayed away.

But then something happened at Hyundai. They started to realize that being like North Korea is about as appealing as going on a date with Miley Cyrus, so they quickly tried to change their image and product. The revolution began, and suddenly Hyundai became more like South Korea. Their products started to rival the heavyweights from Toyota and Honda and now their image is also taking a positive turn.

Case in point, the Genesis Coupe.

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