Hyundai Genesis G80 vs Audi A7, dailycarblog
Look A-Likes: Audi A7 vs Hyundai Genesis G80
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One is an elegantly styled 5-door liftback premium sedan, the other is Hyundai pretending it can appeal to those looking for a premium driving experience. One has frameless doors, the other is a re-marketed Hyundai cowering behind a bunch of lengthy press-releases and backed by beautiful photography to hide the hole in the ceiling. One actually offers a premium-luxury affair, the other offers a Hyundai experience. They are the Audi A7 and Hyundai Genesis G80.

The most remarkable aspect of the Hyundai Genesis G80 is that Audi didn’t get triggered when Hyundai revealed the G80’s exterior design, nor launch legal action for copyright infringement. Audi spent many hours fine-tuning and honing the A7’s exterior design, using a design language and philosophy stretching back decades. Hyundai simply spent a couple of minutes looking at images of the A7, a few seconds sharpening their pencils and then simply copy-pasting the A7’s styling language.


Perhaps we’re being too harsh on Hyundai, modern designers rarely use pencils let alone sharpen them, that’s so late 20th century. Unless you are TVR. These days, designers use digital pencils and touchpads to get creative. But Hyundai wanted to go back to sketching with real pencils and mandated that all car designers should use tracing paper laid over images of the A7 when conceiving the G80’s styling.

Imagine being the Audi Designer responsible for getting the A7 ready, from sketch to the clay model, and to finally see it in full-scale production. What a proud moment that must have been. Imagine the horror emanating from the same designer after seeing the Hyundai Genesis G80 for the first time. Horror is a word not used in the Hyundai lexicon.

Nevertheless, we need to be statistically fair. So let us compare European sales for both the G80 and A7. For 2019 The Audi A7 sold just over 8,000 units. And how many did the Hyundai Genesis G80 sell in the same year, in Europe? 9… yes that is correct… nine. That’s not a joke, it is a statistical fact, Hyundai did indeed get battered in the sales war, Billy Steel style.

The people have spoken, they can see through Hyundai’s copy-paste-pencil-sharpening design philosophy. Although nine European buyers still decided to buy a Genesis G80, one can only hope those 9 buyers will learn from their mistakes. Hyundai never will learn and in order to innovate they will continue to copy… copy… copy… copy… copy… copy… copy…


Hyundai Genesis G80 vs Audi A7, dailycarblog
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