Hyundai Equus IN GOOD COMPANY

A nearly $60,000 Hyundai that will compete with the likes of the BMW 7-series, the Mercedes-Benz S-class, the Lexus LS, and the Audi A8, which all cost considerably more? Laugh if you must, car guy, and then start mentally preparing yourself for the apology you’ll want to have handy once you start seeing Hyundai Equuses huttling their well-heeled owners around town. They laughed when Lexus sat down, too.

We’re not here to tell you that the vaunted German and Japanese giants have been displaced as the mother ships of luxury sedan brands. We are saying, however, that the inexorable rise of Korea’s Hyundai— from maker of entry-level economy cars to serious Accord/Camry competitors to proud parent of the BMW 5-series– sized Genesis, 2009’s North American Car of the Year—continues apace. There is, save snob appeal and the occasional touch of design bravery, not much in the new Equus for most buyers of large luxury conveyances to miss. Except cost. You can’t be too rich, but ostentation is not always a plus these days, as the continued sales and residual-value strength of Hyundai’s most recent move upmarket (the one some said would never work), the Genesis, have shown.

The Equus—with its rear-driven highly sculpted yet on refl ection strangely anodyne. You’ll not be faulted here for thinking it the product of another company, although you’ll be more likely to guess Lexus than Audi, with which brand it shares none of the spasmodic futureforward design sensibility, inside or out, nor the interior tactility. Even compared with a Mercedes or a BMW, this is one cold, sober ride. At least, unlike the fi rstgeneration Equus (a joint venture with Mitsubishi that debuted in 1999 but never made it to America), this all-Hyundai effort isn’t a study in ugly.

Most at home on the open highway or sitting in tra c, where its massaging seats can be considered in earnest, the Equus still managed to acquit itself well on the mountain roads outside Palo Alto, California. Large though it is on the outside, the big Hyundai seems to shrink when you’re behind the wheel. With good grip, acceptable levels of body roll, and an agreeable six-speed automatic, the Equus driver never feels like a sea captain. Of the automatic, it must be said that, while it helps the heavy car serve up 24 mpg on the highway, it comes up short compared with the class-leading eight-speed ZF found in some of its expensive competition. A lack of paddle shifters underscores the Equus’s sedate mission.

Shaving 25 percent out of the price of a major luxury conveyance has to cost something. But its low cost, plus an unobtrusive demeanor and especially its spacious accommodations— available with a reclining rear seat with leg rests in the Ultimate package—make the Equus an obvious candidate for black-car service. Indeed, although the company claims that it is not interested in the airport-limo custom— yet—a Hyundai executive admitted that one New York Lincoln Town Car dealer assured them he’d take their entire anticipated fi rst year’s supply (between 2000 and 3000 cars).

While worthy, the Equus is a resolutely conventional machine. By contrast, Hyundai, which has demonstrated a growing fl air for salesmanship, is taking the opportunity of its new fl agship’s debut to explore a few cutting-edge marketing concepts. Quality hardware and a full complement of electronic gadgetry at competitive prices will draw some to this car, as will a best-in-the-business, tenyear/ 100,000-mile powertrain warranty.

But Hyundai claims it will reel in a younger and more switched-on customer base than its competitors. How? For one thing, Equus owners’ manuals won’t be printed, they’ll be an iPad application to be used on the free iPad given to every buyer. You’re welcome, Steve Jobs. A related benefi t, beyond the iPad hookup, will be the ability to arrange all service and repair work online. Indeed, Hyundai says that once you buy the car,

you’ll never have to go back to the dealer if you don’t feel like it. (Roughly 250 of the company’s 800 dealers are authorized to sell its top-of-the-line Equus.) A valet service, engaged by iPad, laptop, phone, or carrier pigeon, will arrange for the dealer to collect your car from you, leaving a Genesis or an Equus loaner in its place.

We can only wonder what car thieves will make of this iPad experiment. They’ll have a much easier time boosting, and then fencing, the computer tablet than the Equus’s mondo, seventeen-speaker stereo system, assuming they’re able to pry it from the car. But one thing is certain: the fact that this luxury liner is a Hyundai

won’t be their problem. It shouldn’t be yours, either. AM

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(Automobile Magazine)

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