Quote:
Originally Posted by
Roy 
What kind of car can you get for 80k in the USA? In the Netherlands it buys you a pretty decent, but definitley not fully loaded Merc E350 or BMW 530 (the 530i High Executive is 79k euro ( +/- 110k US$).
That is insane. I had no idea you guys paid that much for cars. You can get an M5 for $80K in the US.
I see the new Equus here in Korea often now, it was slow to sell at first though, it came out in March and I didn't really start seeing too many til like late April/May. The Genesis sedan over here though is on epidemic proportions.
People were blowing the Korean prices out of proportion, the $100K Equus isn't out yet either, I think. They make a stretched partition limo version, which is probably what the $100K version was. The top drawer V8 car does cost like $70-80K though, but you can get that above V6 version of this car for like $55K here because of the exchange rate.
Back in March the exchange rate was insane, and a Genesis sedan 3.3L V6 would've been like $27K. A BMW 528i over here is like 60-70K. Frankly, it's clearer here in Korea that they were aiming directly for the 528i, the two cars look so close in profile when I see them at stoplights together, which is often. Plus it's compounded by the fact that everyone buys either a black, silver, or gunmetal grey colored car over here, no matter what it is.
The Genesis sedan styling is super solid. Not a fan of the grille but everything else is near perfect. The Equus doesn't appeal to me as much, the side character line makes things kinda shaky (it does look like it's hustling down the road though, because of that rear character line), the chrome is overdone, and again the grille is too Klingon-esque, but it is a HUGE jump from the previous Equus. I don't know if it has a huge potential for success in the US, but Hyundai's are definitely not inherently bad cars anymore, not by any means. They could drop their dependence on old Mitsubishi architecture, but they are going in the right direction and the styling has improved vastly. (sometimes you just gotta leave styling to a white guy with a bit of restraint to get things done)... Korean cars of yore were HIDEOUS, really inexplicably ugly. Hyundai's design language 5-10 years ago in particular was really offensive, everything looked dented up and beaten even when the cars were new.
Side thought, I think they should release a sports package for the Genesis sedan, something along the lines of the BMW M-sport pack for the 5. New front/rear fascias, a subdued sports grille, 18-19" wheels in a lither look, and a lowered suspension. That'd really do it here in the domestic market, since Infiniti G37s are kind of encroaching on Genesis territory and the Genesis has a pretty stodgy demeanor as it is, but has as much styling potential as a BMW.
My problem with Toyota was you don't get a loaner. You wait for about an hour to get on a service shuttle that will then take another hour to drive you somewhere that's 15 minutes away. The big perk for me is being able to show up at 7am, have a valet take my keys and pull up a (complimentary) comparable service loaner. Getting service does not interrupt my work day, and that's important to me.
