-It's name means horse, it's badge as a bird, may that's Hyundai's way of flipping the bird at the horse's ass who drives this car and the still buy an S class.
Let's drive the 2011 Hyundai Equus and check the tech.
Honda and Toyota launched new division, the new brands when they went upscale.
Hyundai chooses not to,
though Equus says Hyundai virtually nowhere and wears mostly unique badging as if they know they should have launched the new brand, but at the end of the day, the company seems to think it stands for one thing value, from the Accent to the Sonata, to this guy.
Now walking around this car, I see this brand of car in the world reflected in.
Up here in the front, I'm getting Lexus LS matched up with ultima.
I have polished wheels.
They have never looked worst than on this car.
Overall though, the lines are kind of massive and impressive and take it back here then this is little kick up that reminds me of a Dodge Charger rather unpleasantly and the taillights keep flicking me back and fort between BMW 7 series and Infiniti M.
Overall though, the package is one of stately big presence, which is what you've got to do in a car that aims at this audience.
Now, I want you to see this car over and over,
Hyundai is playing the greatest hits of car tech.
They are not going to the far edge with anything.
You can more cutting kind of out there, kind of unproven technology in near price to your competitors, but the core stuff is all here at a shockingly low price.
First of all, navigation on that big 18-inch screen that is standard.
The map is good.
It's not best on the business.
I'm not gonna get a bunch of satellite video views on it, but I do have live traffic.
I've got a very clear looking screen.
It's no touched.
You use a controller down here.
Same thing goes for telephony.
I've got Bluetooth phone on this guy.
I've got phone book connectivity, but I don't have A2DP Bluetooth streaming.
I don't have a hard drive.
I can write music too, but I've got a 6 disc CD changes that also plays DVD, again standard.
I've got 7.1 surround on this vehicle, but not a lot of fancy processing beyond that.
I've got 17 speakers around the cabin, but no audio options, whatsoever.
So, they are saving cost again by having a single audio system on this car.
No complicated line changes they've got to make or dual [unk] that they've got to stock parts from.
In here, stock again, USB, auxiliary, and iPod connector depending on the set of proprietary cable you might use.
On the radio side, I've got AM/FM and HD radio plus XM radio.
Again, that's all standard on both stream levels of this car.
Now, the step you would not expect to get standard.
I've got a forward-looking anticollision system on this car.
That's I believe optional on all their competitors.
I have adaptive cruise control and I've got lane departure warning, this button right here.
Standard on both stream levels, very few cars offer that.
I've got a camera that looks on the back that has 2 different views looking out or looking down.
Now, because our car has got the ultimate package, there are a few options on this guy.
First of all, this button here for the forward looking camera.
It gives you a wide angle view of the front at low speeds only considering you steer at thing and drive by to goes off and like, I don't know, 5 miles an hour, but it lets you nibble into a parking space forward.
The same way the reverse camera lets you do it backwards, and the rest of the duties are an in the back.
Now, if you ever wanted to ride on my back, but came to your senses and realized you'll never have of my back, this is the nearest to it.
We have the ultimate package as I mentioned.
So, back here is this crazy kind of first class airline seatbelt.
I've got this console there and if I push let's say this button, it moves the front seat forward all the way.
Let's hope no one is in it, folds it forward all the way and then it starts to push my seat like this,
see that.
I'm going forward and I'm reclining and I'm also gonna get my footrest to go up.
The problem is, unless you're about 5 feet all-- god, this like one of those secret prisons that the CIA runs in Romania.
It's actually a torture chamber.
So, it helps to be small.
It's we gonna do the recliner thing or to be a pig and put your shoes on the seat in front of you, but if you do that I'll shoot you.
Oh, check this out, in the console, I've got a wireless controller for the massage functions on this guy.
Yeah, no kidding.
The sensor for this is up there on the back of the front seat.
The one I'm using is an ottoman mode 1 and 2, upper back and lower, 4 speed, in call versus out call, wait.
That's vibration versus vibration speed, sound the same thing.
By the way, also in the center console, is a refrigerator with 2 little can holders in it and yes it's quite cold in there and finally, you've got your 8-inch LCD here that pops in the console
and you have a full array of all your media there and your climate controls can all show up on the display.
This is a nice way to ride.
Again, we're nowhere near 100,000 dollars for this car.
Okay in the engine base, I'm putting non-Hyundai stuff.
You know, think that this guy is doing big V8.
That's a big V8, 4.6 L V8, 385 horsepower, but just 333 foot-pounds of torque.
That's a little on the light side.
We'll get to that when we're here on the road in a minute.
0 to 60 happens in 6.7 seconds, which is fine sprightly, but not really fast, MPG is 16 city/24 high way, and all the power goes through 1 direction and 1 gearbox, rear wheel drive only.
No all wheel drive available and it's a 6-speed automatic, which is relatively shall we say basic by today's standards, but it does a job okay and it's a ZF gearbox from Germany and I tell you that in very piece of marketing material they got.
So, the real question and the only that matters is, does this car stock up as a real high end luxury Sedan or just kind of putting the trappings to get them.
First thing you notice is its bank vault quite, almost too quite.
I was surprised how much tire noise I picked up all the time except on the perfect surfaces out there, which they have a few in California.
You do want the sport button down to get the best response, otherwise, it's a little bit sluggish.
I've set low torque number I mentioned, need to ring the most out of it.
I found shifting it wasn't very interesting.
I don't know like the kind of car I wanna shift to be honest.
Couple of things also we're little bit off the steering tries to hard to stay on center that makes big broad sweeping roads, kind of tedious, but I say this I never miss the other 1 or 2 gears this transmission could have while the folks will turn their nose up at a 6 speed, but I don't know, seemed fine to me.
I didn't find the car was making huge leaps between cogs that made the things seemed like it was inelegant.
And the most important thing is
the car feels like it has presence when you're driving.
It feels heavy without feeling ponderous.
There's a big difference.
Luxury tends to equate with a car that feels like it's got a lot of place presence.
This car does that well without being short to drive.
Oh did I remind you, this is the car that comes with an iPod and on it is the Equus app, which includes the owner's manual, fully electronic and interactive, a quick reference guide, thank you, dealer locator service scheduler.
You can build in twice in Equus
in care you wanna buy another one I guess or look at the Hyundai gallery just in case you wanna love their car so much.
All this, in effort to differentiate this guy from the other high dollar German and Japanese luxury badges, but what really differentiates is the price.
The basic and it's not basic at all, Equus is gonna be $58,900.
Your only option is 65,000 bucks to the ultimate package.
That gets you all the bills and whistles on the back seat plus the forward-looking camera and the power trunk lid.
You can load this guy to the gills and it makes the other guys look like what are they thinking at their price.
