Hello friends. This is not going to be the usual post you are used to from me. Thanks to an invitation from Autopian and Genesis Motor Group, I got to spend three days in Minneapolis, a little outside of my comfort zone. Before we begin, I also want to take a moment to thank my dear friend Alanis King, who accompanied this newbie’s first press trip and made it such a wonderful experience.
I am admittedly not a street car fanatic. I’ve worked on race cars all my life. Even before I was old enough to drive, my mom would drop me off at the Alleman Racing shop three days a week to work on her latest dirt track model. Everything I touched was a thoroughbred. A purpose-built rocket. A vehicle built and engineered to live at the edge of grip, tiptoeing the fine line between speed and danger.
(Editor’s note: Aeden is our NASCAR correspondent and the engineer for the JR Motorsports Chevy Camaro that Sam Mayer drives in the Xfinity Series. He had to take a break for the Summer Olympics and we talked him into taking a fun trip to Minnesota to try out a regular car. – (MH)
I just never paid much attention to street cars. Compared to a race car, there was nothing that could capture that childlike wonder. Learning routine maintenance on a car that spent most of its life barely above idle elicited approximately zero emotion compared to changing springs and shocks on a race car chasing another tenth of a second. To me, street cars were nothing more than a tool to get from point A to point B and a bill to be paid every month. As long as mine started every morning, I never paid any attention.
The subject line of the email that landed on my desk read “Genesis GV80 Coupe,” and the image of a sleek, low-slung two-door sports car came to mind. In typical fashion, I had already said “yes” to the invitation before I had even done any research. (Editor’s note: LOL, what? -MH) After closing Gmail, I opened a few more tabs to figure out what the hell I had just signed up for.
What is the GV8o Coupe, seriously, can someone please tell me?
The first thing I learned was that the coupe isn’t really a sports car, but more of a crossover SUV. The 2025 Genesis GV80 Coupe is the “sporty” version of the standard Genesis GV80 SUV. The most noticeable difference is obviously the sloping roofline. Genesis calls this a “coupe design,” but in reality it’s more of a teardrop shape than a true coupe. This is all a bit pedantic, though, and it’s not worth losing the forest for the trees, because visually it’s a very different car to the standard GV80.
The coupe with its sloping rear offers 644 liters of storage space, which can be increased to just over 1,000 liters with the rear seats folded down. For comparison: the standard SUV offers 1,033 liters with the rear seats folded down. (Editor’s note: Liters? This is almost always given in cubic feet, but I’ll let that slide because it amuses me that our NASCAR correspondent uses the metric system. -MH)
From the stylish coupe’s exclusive wheels to the sharper body lines, this is truly a good looking car. Personally, I found the most exciting to discover that the exhaust pipes are actually real and not just for show. Combined with the coupe-style rear bumper, the ride height was the only thing that visually separated the rear of the GV80 from a real sports car.
The Genesis standard two-line MLA headlights (Editor’s note: I feel like Alanis taught him that -MH) fit well with the sharp body lines. By using the body lines to connect the headlights and taillights to the side indicators, they have created a distinct and subtle set of pinstripes on the side. Compared to the standard GV80, which has smoother body lines and a rounded profile, the GV80 Coupe looks precisely chiseled.
While the standard GV80 has a luxurious interior with real wood trim, the coupe version foregoes this and instead opts for carbon fiber with red stitching and seat belts. Even the steering wheel is a GT-style D-shaped steering wheel with aluminum paddle shifters, giving this spacious SUV the feel of a sports car.
Genesis designers have done a great job trying to combine a sense of luxury and performance in all parts of the GV80 Coupe’s interior. The gemstone finish of the shift knobs contrasts nicely with the carbon fiber center panel they are mounted on. Even the cupholders feature red LED trim, enhancing the sense of performance.
The metal pedals feel very solid underfoot and the whole thing is a nice combination of elegant and sporty with refined and comfortable. Even the indicator and wiper stalks had a diamond cut finish that was nice to the touch. The cars I work on don’t even have indicators, so this is pretty impressive.
While dual-zone climate control is nothing new in cars, the GV80 Coupe also offers a heated armrest when the heated seats are activated. Each half of the center console can be heated separately, which was a nice touch for Alanis, who prefers a much warmer ride than I do.
The 27-inch OLED display system is well thought out. The screen is split between two displays, neatly separated right where the steering wheel blocks the driver’s line of sight. Below you can see the handy turn signal display camera. Also displayed is the impressive 20.8 miles per gallon we achieved on our driving route, which consisted of a nice mix of city, highway and back roads. For comparison, a production Xfinity Camaro car like the one I work on gets between 4 and 6.5 miles per gallon. That’s a huge improvement.
How does it ride? Is it tight or loose?
The Genesis GV80 Coupe offers a number of driving modes, including Eco, Snow, Comfort, Sport, and an additional custom setting that lets you create your own mode. As you switch between modes, the indicators change colors to match the atmosphere. Green for Eco, blue for Comfort, and red for Sport. The biggest difference between Comfort and Sport was in the throttle response. There was none of the “bump” feeling you get in a real sports car, and the body lean felt about the same, but with each click of the drive mode selector, the accelerator became increasingly crisp. In Comfort mode, the accelerator felt almost like a dead pedal, with lots of turbo lag and lag when trying to accelerate quickly.
Speaking of power, the Genesis GV80 Coupe is offered with three different engine packages. The first two options are from the standard GV80 SUV and consist of a turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder with 300 horsepower or a twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 with 375 horsepower. The third option is the supercharged V6 from the G90 sedan, which makes a nice 409 horsepower. The supercharged option also has launch control and an additional Sport+ driving mode. In our highly unscientific testing, the supercharged GV80 Coupe managed zero to 60 in about eight seconds, which isn’t bad for a crossover SUV, to be honest.
When you engage Sport+ mode, the seat bolsters are pulled in slightly, giving the feeling of being hugged by the seat. Compared to Sport mode, it feels a notch more torquey and everything just feels a touch crisper under your right foot. I wouldn’t call it so much a change in performance, but more a change in the shift points to make the car feel sharper. For a luxury SUV, that’s more than enough.
Genesis’ e-supercharger is a neat piece of engineering. By combining the supercharger with a 48V mild hybrid electric system, the e-supercharger engine offers fantastic throttle response at lower revs with minimal lag during sudden acceleration.
Another coupe-specific feature is the integration of Active Sound Design, which makes the ride inside the car sound more like a real sports car. The system really does a good job and I wouldn’t have even noticed that it wasn’t a real engine noise if Alanis hadn’t pointed it out to me.
In NASCAR language, the car was closely or loose?So does it tend to understeer or oversteer? You’d be shocked to find out that trying to determine this on a public road in an SUV that weighs around 2.3 tonnes is not a good idea and I would strongly advise anyone looking at the sporty aesthetic to not try and test this. Plus it’s a tiny bit cramped.
Yes, the Genesis GV80 Coupe, which isn’t actually a coupe, is a fantastic car, and I know this is a car review, but that wasn’t my main takeaway from the trip.
That was fun
I’ve spent my whole life on race tracks, with race cars and race drivers. In this segment of the car world, I could walk up to anyone in a bar and ask, “Did you see Hoffman and Pierce the other day?” and they would know I was talking about the Prairie Dirt Classic in Fairbury. Faces would light up and a fascinating discussion about the event would ensue. For as long as I can remember, that’s been my perception of car culture. What I saw and experienced in three days in Minneapolis was a side of my own world that I never really knew existed.
While walking down the street, a simple comment about a parked car sparked a lively discussion. The year, make, model, trim, available colors and every other aspect of that car was up for discussion and everyone seemed to have an idea about it. As a local car-not-a-street-car guy, I could only watch in amazement. The same level of passion and detailed knowledge that I knew from the racing world was equally, if not more, present for these vehicles that I had largely ignored. I found a group of strangers who could chat well into the evening, brought together simply by their love of automobiles.
As I leave you, I would like to show you the first page of “Motor Racing” by SCH Davis, originally published in 1932.
Every car lover experiences a moment in his life like this one, written about almost a century ago. The little boy from the book exists in the soul of each of us. This part of our soul is crucial. It deserves to be nurtured and cared for.
Sometimes you need to broaden your horizons to re-center yourself and remember why you do the things you do. When your favorite driver gets into an accident or you find yourself in the comments section heatedly debating a taillight design, take a moment to think back and remember the moment you first fell in love with the car. Whatever you do, do it for the love of the car.
