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Genesis wants to build a better Porsche 911. Or, at least, its own 911.
The Hyundai-owned luxury brand has revealed its plans to take on the Porsche 911 head-to-head — by directly copying the Porsche 911 business model. So if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then Porsche should be feeling very flattered.
As part of its new plan to grow sales, Genesis has launched the Magma performance division, alongside the Genesis Magma Racing initiative. These streams will combine with the Genesis Magma GT, an all-new sports car that will compete with the Porsche 911 both on the racetrack and in the showroom.
Previewed as a concept, the Magma GT is a mid-engined sports car that takes direct aim at the iconic German machine. And Genesis Chief Creative Officer, Luc Donkerwolke, was not shy in admitting he envisions the Magma GT following the same road as the 911.
The primary goal for the Magma GT is to make a new GT3-class racing car — which will be able to compete in events like the Bathurst 12-hours and Le Mans 24-hours — but rather than just build the limited 250 road-legal examples to be eligible for racing, Donkerwolke wants to make it a fully-fledged member of the Genesis line-up, a halo model for the entire brand.
“Now as soon as you do that work (to make it racing eligible), why not use it to sell production cars, which are street legal?” Donkerwolke explained.
“So this is clearly the answer is ‘yes’, street legal and they will go from a base car, that you saw yesterday or today, to adding an S, a GTS , a roadster, a lightweight version, a club sport version, a GT3 spec but still street legal, to a GT3 R, which is going to be only for racing or for track use. So you will have the whole palette if we do it. It's a complete lifecycle of products. So that's clearly the goal. And it's going to be again, a Magma, and they will be at the beginning, there will be the Magma GT at the very base, what you saw.”
If that line-up of S, GTS, roadster, clubsport and GT3 sounds familiar, it’s because that is the core of the Porsche 911 range. Clearly, Donkerwolke and Genesis have no qualms about using the 911 as a template for its own sports car hero.
Exactly when Genesis will do this work and get the Magma GT from concept to showroom remains unclear, but all indications are it will take at least two years before it appears on either road or track.
As for what will power the new machine, Donkerwolke was cagey but admitted it could be a V8 — after the concept was clearly powered by a V8 engine based on the sound when driven.
“ You have to know that when we talked about this powertrain, it's basically again for having a variety of usage from all production cars, the more evil ones, but also also the racing cars,” he said.
“It's not only just developing and looking at that part, it's developing a series of powertrains that we can use for different usages. This is why we are not at the moment committing ourselves to what you say. What is in there is clearly V8. Is that going to be you? You hear it? You I don't want, I don't have to lie. Is this one specifically going to be? The future will tell.”
Manfred Harrer, Genesis Performance Tech leader, said the company remains committed to internal combustion engine options for future models, specifically Magma, but wouldn’t lock in whether the brand would develop an all-new V8 engine given the increasingly strict global emissions laws.
“The design philosophy and the technology we need,” Harrer said. “Regarding the engines, we are working as a worldwide company, not only EVs in the future. You know, our lineup is hybrid, it’s EV but also the next generation of powertrains. And we considered this really from day one to have also extreme high performance powertrain also available for this car if needed. But I keep it open, is it six or eight? Stay tuned on that.”
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