Rumors about the Genesis GV80 Coupe have been circulating the Internet for two years, but it’s only now that we have concrete evidence of a BMW X6 rival to luxury brand Hyundai. Clearly powered by a combustion engine judging by its enormous quad exhaust tips, the swoopy SUV has been spied cold-weather testing on a frozen lake near the Arctic Circle.
While this is only the first batch of spy shots we’ve received from our car paparazzi, the prototype appears to have a full production body already. That presumably means the official premiere will take place before the end of the year. Meanwhile, Genesis placed extra camouflage behind the tailgate to hide most of the changes that will be made compared to the conventionally shaped GV80.
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The coupe SUV will lose some rear headroom and possibly cargo capacity for the sake of (Possible) extra style and thus echoes the likes of the Audi Q8 and Mercedes GLE Coupe. If the German model is any indication, it will be more expensive than the regular GV80 that has been on sale since 2020.
Speaking of the standard model, this highly understated prototype could feature a mid-cycle facelift for the regular GV80 as it appears to have nicer headlights. Their extra complexity makes us think Genesis will install G90-like lights on the SUV for a possible facelift coming soon.
Lest we forget that towards the end of 2021, an official video released by Genesis shows what looks like a scale model of the yet-to-be-announced GV80 Coupe. (name not confirmed). This tells us that SUV derivatives have been around for a long time, so the spy shots shouldn’t come as a big surprise.
As a side note, there’s another scale model briefly shown off in the video, presumably the GV90 large electric SUV paired with the Ioniq 7 and EV9. If that’s the case, a zero-emissions luxobarge could be out sometime in the middle of this decade. It will certainly be after its sibling since the Hyundai and Kia models have been previewed as concepts.
