The North American, and Canadian Car of the Year, the Hyundai Genesis is certainly drawing a lot of attention lately, so it’s no surprise that I should want to get my hands on one.

By now you’ve probably read enough new car reviews to know the format. We journalists typically describe the basic vehicle, point out a few interesting items, or maybe an odd concern which we have found, and finally, we supply our personal rating.

Well forget all of that! I’m going to jump straight in at the deep end and make a statement right up front, and then I’m going to spend the rest of the article justifying my reasoning. So here goes...The 2009 Hyundai Genesis 3.8L V6 is the most surprising vehicle that I have driven in the past year! Now I’m going to tell you why I believe this.

Firstly, if anyone out there can tell me that they saw this vehicle coming ten years ago, I’m going to employ them as my new personal stock advisor because I don’t believe that anyone could have foreseen this vehicle. Hyundai, the company which gave us the Pony moving into the high-end vehicle market? Whatever next... Massey Fergusson going into competition with Harley Davidson?

Well, if one had taken the time to closely look at the Hyundai Azera a few years back, he might have visualized the slight possibility of this new car. After all, the Azera was quite an upward jump for the company at the time. I guess if they had started from that point and then imagined another huge leap, it might have resulted in something like the new Genesis, but to be honest, I think most of us in the industry were still coming to terms with the idea of an up-market Hyundai.

Yes, whatever way you look at it, the new Hyundai Genesis came out of the gate running, and wowed the entire industry in one swift swoop, which is exactly the reason why I believe the Genesis to be a worthy COTY winner.

Let’s take a closer look at this vehicle...From the outside some say that it resembles a few well known prestigious vehicles. Names like Lexus, Infiniti, and Mercedes have been mentioned, along with BMW. Now I’m not going to say that I don’t see something in that, but then the same could be said for many vehicles today. After all, it takes a brave car company to design something totally radical and unlike anything else on the road, especially in the higher end marketplace. It’s also hardly surprising in some ways because although the Genesis is targeting the likes of the Lexus ES, Chrysler 300, and the Pontiac G8, the company fully admits that its engineering benchmarks were the Mercedes E-Class, the BMW 5 Series, the Infiniti M, and the Lexus GS.

Ok, fair enough, I can possibly recognize a hint of 5 Series BMW here and there, and it wouldn’t be too much a stretch of the imagination to view the vehicle as a high-end Lexus offering, especially as the front carries no identifying logo. However, as I have stated previously, a lot of vehicles carry similarities nowadays.

Speaking of “identifiable logos”, one of the first noticeable features on the exterior of the Genesis is the fact that it doesn’t actually carry a prominent Hyundai nameplate anywhere. In fact, if it wasn’t for the companies “H” logo on the trunk lid and wheel centre caps, there’d be no way of identifying which company manufactured the vehicle.

On that note, here’s an interesting snippet for you...A friend of mine recently purchased a new Genesis and informs me that the vehicle is simply known as “the Genesis” back in Korea where it’s built. In fact, he’s already ordered and replaced all the original H decals with Korean “Genesis” badges. I saw his vehicle parked and was pleasantly entertained watching passers-by trying to figure out exactly what the vehicle was!