2021 Genesis G70 vs 2022

What's the difference?

After an early identity crisis where the name was used under the Hyundai banner, Genesis, the Hyundai Group’s luxury brand, launched globally as a stand-alone entity in 2016, and formally arrived in Australia in 2019.

Keen to disrupt the premium market, it offers provocatively priced sedan and SUV models, bristling with tech and loaded with standard equipment. And already, its entry-level model, the G70 sedan, has been updated.

Yes, there is an argument that Genesis launching a station wagon is a bit like someone attempting to make money by announcing they’ve come up with a new DVD player, or perhaps even a black and white TV.

On paper, or online, it seems like an act of madness, or vain hope, but then you see a Genesis G70 Shooting Brake Sport in the shapely flesh, and it starts to make sense. Not only is the Shooting Brake (a far more exciting title that “station wagon”, “estate” or “avant”, Shooting Brake dates back to the days of horse-drawn carriages designed to take out groups of people who liked to shoot defenceless animals) the most attractive vehicle in the Genesis line-up, and prettier than the G70 sedan, it is also enormously more appealing to look at than every single SUV currently on sale anywhere in the world. Period.

And if we bought cars with our eyes alone, it would no doubt do very well, but in a world, and a country, where SUVs are king, how good does a station wagon have to be to win sales?

We took a Shooting Brake from SUVs to find out.