The G80 will be unveiled here as the new Korean brand’s lone model for starters

SINGAPORE — Hyundai has big plans for its new luxury brand, and they include Singapore. Genesis will be launched here in November, when its latest model the G80 will be introduced.

Hyundai importer Komoco Motors will be handling the franchise, although CarBuyer understands that the new brand will not have its own showroom.

Genesis is the Hyundai Motor’s new upscale brand. The name was previously attached to a high-end Hyundai model, but is being spun off into a standalone marque.

It’s a move that mirrors Toyota’s launch of the Lexus brand in 1989. That was done to let the Japanese carmaker enter the luxury market, where profit margins are fatter. Similarly, Genesis is intended as a way for Hyundai Motor to charge premium prices for a premium car.

Currently, Genesis has two models, the G80 and the G90 (known as the EQ900 in Seoul), a larger car. Think of them as Korea’s answer to the BMW 5 Series and 7 Series, respectively.

READ MORE > What it’s like to drive “Korea’s Lexus”

The G90 is not available in right-hand drive, so the G80 will provide Singapore with its lone Genesis model for a start.

It was unveiled at last month’s Busan motor show, where the new division’s chief Manfred Fitzgerald pulled the covers off a G80 and G80 Sport, a racier version with its own grille and bumper, dark chrome and sportier alloy wheels.

The G80 is actually a facelifted version of the Hyundai Genesis, which was launched in Singapore in October 2014. In morphing into a Genesis G80, it’s had its interior upgraded with posher materials. A new engine will also be available in the form of a 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6, tuned for 370 horsepower.

To woo customers, Genesis will focus on strong design, said Fitzgerald at the G80’s Busan launch. That strategy has prompted Hyundai to recruit top designers from Volkswagen Group to sculpt the new cars.

The division’s styling studio is headed by Luc Donckerwolke, the Belgian designer who was in charge of styling at Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini. Hyundai has also poached Lee Sangyup, a Korean national who designed the Bentley Bentayga, the luxury brand’s first Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV).

If that car sells strongly, it bodes well for Genesis. The brand will have two SUVs in its line up by 2020.

Other cars in the pipeline are a sporty coupe and a smaller four-door, the G70. Industry watchers expect the G70 to be based on Hyundai’s Azera (or Grandeur, as it’s called in Korea).

As for what the new cars will look like, a concept car shown at last year’s New York auto show provides a strong hint.

“The Genesis New York concept got a lot of attention, a lot of people like it,” says Yang Woong-chul, the head of Hyundai’s research and development department. “We’re planning for six Genesis vehicles in the next few years. One of them could be pretty much close to that.”

The designs are already winning praise. “What Luc and his team are doing is amazing,” a Mercedes-Benz designer told CarBuyer. For his part, Donckerwolke seems to be relishing the task ahead. “At Genesis we don’t have the ballast of the past. We can create and look forward,” he says.

For all that, the brand faces an uphill battle in Singapore. German marques continue to have a stranglehold on the luxury segment here, and to catch them Genesis would have to first pass Japanese and British competitors.

Realistically, that would take years, perhaps even decades. When the G80 gets here it will only be the start of Hyundai Motor’s assault on the luxury market. The Genesis may be launched here in November, but it will be quite some time before it will have arrived.

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Check out how big the long-wheelbase Genesis EQ900L is inside: