A STAR IS BORN
Wind your mental clocks back about three decades. The year is 1985, Ronald Reagan just began his second term in the White House, and a new Korean car company was selling a Giugiaro-designed hatchback for the low, low price of $4,995.
Americans couldn’t pronounce the brand’s name. (Hun-dee? Hi-yun-day? Hoon-dye?) And its little Excel did anything but. The wheezy econobox’s most notable performance credential was the LAPD’s dubious—later retracted—claim that Rodney King was driving one at speeds of 110 to 115 mph.
Fast-forward to the present. How beyond belief is it that that same cheap and cheerful automaker—Hyundai—not only has improved so dramatically over the years that it has launched a luxury brand, but has also built a better BMW 3 Series fighter right out of the gate than the Japanese luxury brands have in numerous attempts?
That car is the Genesis G70, and we have voted it the 2019 MotorTrend Car of the Year. Unthinkable, right? Unthinkable, that is, unless you’ve been paying attention.
Hyundai launched Genesis Motors two years ago with the impressive G90, a full-size luxury machine that
