Jaw-dropping Genesis Essentia stole the show in NY—and it may never be built

This concept wants to rekindle the passion we feel for cars.

NEW YORK—This year's New York International Auto Show was rather busy when it came to new car reveals. It was the North American debut for Jaguar's exciting I-Pace and Hyundai's Kona Electric electric vehicles. It saw the world premieres of the new Toyota Corolla and Nissan Altima, both of which should sell in their hundreds of thousands. Not to mention the new Audi RS5 Sportback, which almost certainly won't. But unusually for an auto show, the one thing that wasn't thick on the ground was the concept car.

However, the few that we did see were all rather exciting, each in its own way. Most were thinly veiled production cars, stalking horses for models soon to arrive in the showroom, like Lincoln's Aviator. But the most jaw-dropping was a machine unlikely to ever go into production, the Genesis Essentia.

The genesis of this Genesis started last year after the New York Auto Show when Sangyup Lee, VP of design, and Sasha Selipanov, chief designer of Genesis Advanced Design, spoke together with Luc Donkerwolke, head of Genesis design, and Manfred Fitzgerald, brand chief for Genesis, and asked themselves what could be a show-stunner for the 2018 show.

As a long-hood, short-deck, low-slung concept, the Essentia shows a well-known and well-loved form factor for front-engine sports cars, but this one has no conventional engine. It's a battery electric vehicle with the motor, batteries, and mechanicals all tucked into the front, under what would otherwise be a transmission and driveshaft tunnel, placing all the mechanical weight very low in the chassis without forcing a higher seat height and higher roofline.

"The last thing we want to do is create a retro design, even though we talked about which cars meant a lot to us, and the Cobra Daytona Coupe as well as the Ferrari Lusso came into the discussion, but modernism is just as important, plus we use unique design solutions that make this a modern car," Lee told Ars. "We've recently launched concept cars here at NY, so we decided to show something even more special and inspirational indicating strong brand direction. We also had the idea this should be an electric GT, but overall, our guiding theme of athletic elegance would be foremost."

The choice of an all-electric GT was a slightly intriguing one. We asked Lee if there was any thought about doing something very different, rather than a form factor that suggests front engine and rear drive? "Yes, but the proportion is quite unique here because it has a long hood and a lot of dash-to-axle distance," notes Lee. "Being an electric car, we could make the hood extremely low, partly because we have no big engine, but that also creates other factors. How do we showcase this big space in front? We decided to use it as an air channel but also as a showcase for the pushrod suspension."
"I like to think that form following function is still alive and well in a GT car," offers Selipanov. "The long hood here is not just an aesthetic need. We don't have batteries under the seats; they are placed in the tunnel from front to back, which is a way to achieve a low silhouette. If we didn't have this we'd need to use a higher profile, have the seats higher, and heighten the roof, which we did not want to do. This also dictated the length of the wheelbase."

"At the rear, we have no cut lines around the taillights," notes Selipanov. "The Genesis typeface is seamless in the back, so the flushness of modernism is very much here. A lot of people get carried away with designing a headlight or a door handle. But we try to stay more pure to the form. In the end, it has to work cohesively. What needs to be hidden is hidden; what needs to stay on the surface stays on the surface. And it's all executed in a minimalistic way."

"Every car must stand the test of time," says Lee. "So the more you add on, the trendier and [shorter]-lived it will be. Let's face it. The luxury car industry is fine without Genesis. [We're] an addition to the market, so we must create our own story in a special way. Before Genesis, I was at Bentley, a company with a design book six inches thick. As a designer, you have to memorize everything and then ask yourself is this Bentley Bentley enough? We at Genesis also have a thick book, but it's filled with empty pages. So, we're making and building the brand, defining it. That's part of the fun of designing for Genesis.

Will they build it?
Asked about production intent, Lee goes out on a small limb: "Right now, this is a pure design vision," cautions Lee, "but at the same time, why not? But at first, right now, we want to know what you think and what the public thinks."

Fitzgerald was even more forthright. "If it were totally up to me we'd green light this project in a heartbeat. From a design perspective it's the most emotional body type you can do. That's what really brings emotion to the brand. From that perspective I would like to see the company greenlight the project," he told Ars.

For Fitzgerald, the Essentia is about rekindling the excitement that cars used to create. "For me it just brings back memories," he explained. "I grew up in a time when you still had posters on your wall and were dreaming of "when I grow up I want this car," and it seems like this kind of notion we've lost in the past few years," Fitzgerald said. "It's all been driven by rationale over emotion. I think if we could try and bring that back and create that passion for cars again, I think that would be a remarkable success."