While we can often be quite an obnoxious bunch in the car enthusiast community, it seems many of us would agree that the Genesis X Concept looks phenomenal. That’s why I should be excited that the luxury carmaker recently launched a tweet ask how many people would put down a deposit of $ 1,000 for this a.
The wording of the tweet is very strange. Normally, automakers who post feelers on social media to gauge interest in a concept car will say something along the lines of “if you want us to build it!” or “guess what, should we do it?” Perhaps Genesis is trying to make it clear that it is serious to produce the X concept nothing but if you guys are serious about buying one. That’s fair, because people have a habit of saying they will do something and begging for it and then did not show up when push comes to shove.
But it’s also hard for me to believe that a brand like Genesis, taking advantage of Hyundai’s full weight scale with all the market research that can be bought, so caught from-guard by enthusiasm for the X concept that it would use Twitter feedback to make that decisionEspecially if this isn’t Genesis’ first rodeo in the field of sporty coupé concepts, and the company should now be damn well aware that people are digging its stuff. We have been here before.
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That’s the problem there. If Genesis hadn’t already done this twice in the past four years, I might be tempted to take the tweet at first glance. But you can only produce so many show cars in this vein, without a production counterpart, before the sight of yet another feels more like a tease than a statement of intent.
It’s a lot like when Mazda trotted out the rotary engine RX-Vision concept in 2015, when a racing version of it strictly for Great tourism last year, and then announced it was completely abandoning racing at the highest level two months ago. We are constantly being told that exercises like these represent ‘the soul of the brand’ or whatever, but when those values are not reflected in products for sale, they are not instilling the enthusiastic credibility that PR departments are so desperate about try to cultivate.
I hope this case is different; I hope Genesis is actively considering bringing some two-door to market and that the result resembles the X Concept as much as possible. I hope Genesis is only playing cautiously on Twitter because it knows the car is coming, and it knows it will.
Personally, the X Concept works because I see so many references to luxury sports coupes and sedans from the past in it. The angular lower bumper is reminiscent of the E39 M5; the smooth and clean deep green body is reminiscent of 1990s Jaguars; and I can’t help but discover some Eunos Cosmo in the extremely low, wide setting, especially from the back quarter. The double stripe headlights that run all the way through the front fenders are certainly not something suitable for production, but it’s one of the rare visual brand motifs I’ve noticed on a modern car that I don’t find annoying.
No matter what happens from now on, the X Concept is a design triumph. But Genesis has the power to make it so much more.