At 2019 NAIAS motor show held in Detroit, Hyundai’s Head Product Planner, Mike O’Brien, dropped a strong hint that a high-performance G70 could be in the works. Two years later, apparently the project was discarded to focus on electric vehicles, but this mysterious vehicle spotted in South Korea could confirm that at least it was truth.
Spied during the weekend, this G70 showed up big fenders compared to the regular model, a Hyundai N-performance blue color, or red accents on the side skirts and rear bumpers.
The vehicle was spotted on a tow truck together with a camouflaged SUV that could be Telluride facelift. According to the industry sources, this is a project that was cancelled by Genesis to focus on electric vehicles.
Returning to the original interview with Hyundai Product Planner, at that time he also said: “A big effort with the G70 was thermal management, to make sure that this car will hold up,” O’Brien told us. “We’re building for the future. I’ll just say that.”
The topic of thermal management came up when discussing the Veloster N, which was designer to withstand long lapping. Thermal management, O’Brien says, has become an important engineering focus at Hyundai and Genesis, thanks largely to Albert Biermann, the former head of the N division who was recently promoted to R&D chief for all of Hyundai.
That note about extra cooling capacity in the G70 could indicate that Genesis would like to offer something sportier than the standard G70, perhaps with racetrack performance in mind. An M3-fighter? That seems ambitious, but then again, so was targeting the 3-Series in the first place.
Would such a model be badged as a G70 N? O’Brien told them it was too early to say. At that moment, Genesis was still figuring out how it wants to brand any eventual performance cars.
So, what do you think? Will Genesis launch a performance variant? Will be based on ICE’s or only EVs?
