2011 Hyundai Equus vs. 2010 Lexus LS460L
Just like Lexus undercut Mercedes 20 years ago. Note the way the Equus undercuts the six-figure Lexus. Limo versus limo. Instead, we stacked the Equus against the mighty 4961-pound LS460L AWD dripping with automotive frippery, including a $5860 sleepy-driver alert and $13,200 worth of “Executive Class” rear seats. Were this match based on price alone, we might have pitted an Equus with the Ultimate package ($65,400) against a base LS460 ($66,255), although that would have been limo versus size-XL sedan.
What we have here is LS Launch Redux, Seoul-cookin’ style. None of that is a coincidence. Their 4.6-liter V-8s differ in displacement by one cubic inch. Their elapsed times through the quarter-mile are identical. Their acceleration to 30, 60, and 100 mph varies by but a tenth.
Their skidpad clinginess hovers within two-hundredths of a g. Their 70-mph braking potential is separated by 12 inches. In our sound-level measurements, they differ by a max of one decibel. Consider: In length, width, height, and front and rear track, the Equus and Lexus LS460L are cut from common cloth.
What we have here is LS Launch Redux, Seoul-cookin’ style. None of that is a coincidence. Their 4.6-liter V-8s differ in displacement by one cubic inch. Their elapsed times through the quarter-mile are identical. Their acceleration to 30, 60, and 100 mph varies by but a tenth.
Their skidpad clinginess hovers within two-hundredths of a g. Their 70-mph braking potential is separated by 12 inches. In our sound-level measurements, they differ by a max of one decibel. Consider: In length, width, height, and front and rear track, the Equus and Lexus LS460L are cut from common cloth.
2011 Hyundai Equus vs. 2010 Lexus LS460L
When Korean engineers set about copying the modern LS, they swallowed their inventiveness and simply deployed a really good Xerox machine. if this über-Hyundai isn’t a hit, however, it won’t be for lack of sedulous benchmarking. Think Volkswagen Phaeton. Think Subaru SVX, here.
Maybe that obfuscation will work, although history suggests that manufacturers who spend multiple decades churning out econocars are inextricably wed to econocars. Notice that the Hyundai name appears nowhere on the Equus. It thus finds itself hawking a Zegna suit with a made-in-Korea label. For one thing, Hyundai is clinging to its name, warts and all, in hopes that the costly creation of a separate luxury brand won’t be necessary.
Not necessarily. If it worked for Lexus, it’ll work for Hyundai, right? Ed jokes. Say goodbye to all your Mr.
Say hello to the Equus. Buoyed by the success of the Genesis and deploying that sedan’s able platform, Hyundai has fashioned an LS460 clone intended to woo annually a mere 2000 to 3000 Americans who found the original LS recipe so enticing. Here comes Hyundai, the paradigm of all things automotively economical, pursuing its own slice of the luxosedan pie. And, now, history repeats itself. Even as Lexus trotted out the LS400, Hyundai was launching its first Sonata, and we smirked at the Koreans’ too-big-for-their-britches assertion that the Sonata would one day rival Camrys and Accords.
We too often label Hyundai a juvenile upstart, when, in fact, the company set up shop here a quarter-century ago [see timeline]. Well, not exactly. Enter Hyundai. luxury market.
In 1989, it wasn’t hip to say “I drive a Lincoln,” but it almost overnight became hip to say “I drive a Lexus.” In short, the LS400 made the Lexus brand, which, by 2009, commanded 17.8 percent of the U.S. The LS worked so well that, over the course of the next two decades, it never strayed from its original assignment. At the end of its second year, Lexus was already America’s bestselling luxury-import brand. Few luxury offerings have more squarely hit the marketing nail on the head. Ready or not, that’s the car Toyota built.
What if the LS400 were dead reliable and unpretentious, a marriage of filtered ride, silken mechanicals, placid dynamics, and sub rosa luxury? What if the LS400 were the world’s most desirable Cadillac Brougham, the most intergalactically fantastic Lincoln Town Car? Instead, Toyota was also eyeing an amorphous, oft-maligned market that was, all through the ’80s, badly serving its uniquely American customers. We didn’t know it at first, but the Japanese weren’t relying on the LS400 just to fake a heritage and infiltrate an established luxury niche, a niche then defined by BMW, Audi, and Mercedes. That wasn’t even the scariest part.
Moreover, the car was seemingly twice the size it needed to be, was twice as luxurious as any Toyota before, and was propelled by twice as many cylinders as the Corolla-grade thrusters that had made chairman Eiji Toyoda an internationally revered, well, Yoda. For starters, it was an object of discretionary income commanding $35,000—$61,732 in today’s cash. The 1990 Lexus LS400 represented much that Toyota wasn’t. “Jeez,” we warned, “sounds risky.” Little did we know how risky.
“Uh, yeah, only got 10 minutes, so gimme 10 grand worth of car—blue or green’s okay.” Announcing its 1990 lineup, Toyota was giddy to inform, “The Cressida is offered in several new colors!” And so the news of a Toyota luxury brand—Lexus—was a bombshell viewed by not a few dealers and journalists as an uppity, above-your-station strategy likely to tank in a tsunami of Japanese apologies and executive firings. Toyota had become the go-to supplier for a stem-to-gudgeon lineup of rational, oft-emotionless automobiles. Almost no thought was required. By the summer of ’89, Americans had come to adore shopping for Toyotas.
2011 Hyundai Equus vs. 2010 Lexus LS460L
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