Design Group and ready to battle the world’s top sedans with world-class innovations and engineering. The idea, more or less, was to build an S-Class or 7 Series fighter at a considerable cost advantage. While a top-dog luxury flagship might be out of reach for most shoppers, the G90 made it a possibility with an MSRP that questioned the need to spend six figures.
Back then, Hyundai was spinning Genesis off into its own luxury brand, using a name now highly familiar and easily associated with Hyundai which had been selling Genesis Coupes and Genesis Sedans for some years. Alongside the increasing traction of the Genesis nameplate, Hyundai was also making headlines in this era for reliability, quality, and dependability closing in on some of the world’s best-rated brands. Today, early copies of this high-achieving luxury sedan can be yours for around $20,000. At that price point, you’ll likely find the G90 to be all the luxury performance car you need, and then some. Did we mention that you can even find yours with a sweet, silky 5.0-liter all-motor V8? Read on for the details.
One way to make sure luxury and performance enthusiasts take notice of your brand-new luxury car brand and its brand-new flagship sedan is to have a range of really good engines using in-demand technologies of the day. Another is to offer plenty of selection. Both bases are covered here. The twin-turbo V6 is a highly-proven engine with great heaps of torque and strongly-building pulling power that will elicit grins – but note that as a luxury flagship, you’ll be hearing less of that engine from the driver’s seat of a G90 versus, say, a Kia Stinger.
The 5.0-liter V8 is a particularly interesting choice in 2025 as well. Now discontinued, the ‘Tau’ V8 engine in its latest five-liter configuration represented the very latest version of a next-generation V8 family launched a decade earlier. Back then, it was a 4.6-liter unit that Hyundai built to be up-sized, boosted, and electrified as warranted by the competitive pressures of the day. Around then, German flagship sedans were tending towards smaller twin-turbo V8s, to which Hyundai responded with an updated 5.0-liter Tau V8 that breathed freely and spun up 420 horsepower – flexing some all-motor power-per-liter muscle in the process.
Behind the motor, there’s an automatic 8-speed and the H-TRAC AWD system, which can send up to 40 percent of available torque to the front axle when required, at blink-of-an-eye speeds. Just as quickly, it can send up to 100 percent of engine torque to the rear axle to boost performance or fuel efficiency, depending on the position of the driver’s right foot.
When the G90 initially went on sale, it offered little less than the market’s very latest in safety tech as standard equipment – including Automatic Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection, Smart Cruise Control with Stop/Start, Smart Blind Spot Detection, and Lane Keep Assist. Sensor fusion technology allowed the G90 to avoid certain collisions and reduce the impacts of others, and the Smart Cruise Control system with Lane Keep Assist (LKA) makes it easier to drive the G90 smoothly.
There’s a 22-way adjustable climate-controlled driver’s seat with a cushion extender. Rear seats offer ventilation and heat, power slide and recline functions, and 4-way head restraints. The G90 projects its logo onto the ground nearby to welcome occupants on board, drenches the cabin with music via a 17-speaker Lexicon audio system, and even features the segment’s first cabin carbon dioxide level sensor and Air Quality System. Elsewhere, look for continuous damping control for the smoothest possible ride, a hands-free power trunk, rear window shade, ambient cabin lighting, adaptive headlights, a surround-view parking camera, and more. If you want all the toys, an early G90 makes it easy because it pretty much comes with everything.
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