Rumors of a Genesis GV80 Coupe have been swirling around the Internet for two years but it's only now we have concrete evidence of a BMW X6 rival from Hyundai's luxury brand. Clearly powered by a combustion engine judging by the surprisingly large quad exhaust tips, the swoopy SUV has been spied cold-weather testing on a frozen lake near the Arctic Circle.
Although this is only the first batch of spy shots we have received from our car paparazzi, the prototype already appears to have the full production body. It possibly means the official premiere will take place before the end of the year. In the meantime, Genesis puts extra camouflage aft the rear doors to hide where most of the changes will be made compared to the conventionally shaped GV80.
Genesis GV80 Coupe spy photos
The coupe-ified SUV will lose some of the rear headroom and possibly cargo capacity for the sake of (maybe) extra style and therefore echo the likes of the Audi Q8 and Mercedes GLE Coupe. If those German models are any indication, it'll command a premium over the regular GV80 that has been on sale since 2020.
Speaking of the standard model, this heavily disguised prototype could preview a mid-cycle facelift for the regular GV80 since it appears to have fancier headlights. Their extra complexity makes us think Genesis will put G90-like lights on the SUV for a possible facelift coming soon.
Lest we forget that near the end of 2021, an official video released by Genesis showed what looked like a scale model of the yet-to-be-announced GV80 Coupe (name not confirmed). It tells us the SUV's derivative has been a long time in the making, so the spy shots should not come as a big surprise.
As a side note, there was another scale model briefly shown in the video, presumably of a GV90 large electric SUV twinned with the Ioniq 7 and EV9. If that's the case, the zero-emission luxobarge could come out around the middle of the decade. It'll certainly happen after its mainstream siblings since the Hyundai and Kia models have already been previewed as concepts.
