mmarshall

How about Amythist (purplish-gray)? Now, there's a truly beautiful shade.

Normally, I like brighter colors on a car, but I'm not sure that Ferrari Red (an F1 racing color) would be an apt shade for the ultra-conservative Equus. The beautiful Lexus Matador Red and Chrysler Inferno Red (which is virtually the same shade) would be, IMO, better choices.

Slvr surfr

iTrader: (1)

And the stately, timeless stance of the LS430 is even better!

GS69

Hyundai Equus: Impersonating a Lexus @ the Luxury Car Ball

FOR top luxury cars, there’s an old saw about prices: if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. Hyundai clearly feels there’s no harm in asking, especially in a shaky economy. How else to explain the Equus, its new priced-to-sell luxury sedan?

This $60,000 Lexus-baiting limo will look like an alien battleship at Hyundai dealerships, hovering over the Elantras and Tucsons. But to owners of the Lexus LS 460, the better sci-fi reference is “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”: from its design to its powertrain to its features, the Hyundai seems a virtual copy of the Lexus, such a crib that it might hail from Shanghai, not South Korea.

Of course, that’s how Lexus began its Trojan horse conquest of America in 1990, by imitating a Mercedes but selling the impostor for $35,000 — seemingly a lot at the time for a social-climbing Toyota, but some $27,000 less than a Benz 420SEL.

Today, cars in this league can top $100,000, but the idea is the same. Coming from the 21st-century discount king, the Equus looks to kick Lexus and the Germans in the shins while cutting their prices off at the knees.

The Equus starts at $58,900 for the Signature model, compared with nearly $73,000 for the long-wheelbase version of the Lexus. But the de facto price spread is wider, because the feature-stuffed Hyundai doesn’t offer a single extra-cost option.

Choose the Ultimate edition at $65,400, and the Equus goes feature-to-feature with a loaded LS 460 L that tops $97,000 — right down to the Lexus’s plush rear quarters with its right-side reclining chair, which not only heats, cools and massages a pampered passenger, but comes with a power footrest, DVD entertainment and a refrigerator in the center console that awaits a bottle of bubbly or Capri Suns for your coddled children.

Clearly, big spenders can feel like big savers if they choose the Hyundai. Automotive Lease Guide, whose resale estimates help automakers set lease rates, figures the Equus will lose 50% of its value after 3 years, which ties it with the Lexus for the least depreciation in the class.

So toast the Equus buyer for financial intelligence. And if you limit driving expectations to what the Lexus does so well — it’s still 1 of the world’s most tranquil cruisers — the Hyundai acquits itself with surprising grace.

But Hyundai’s money-saving strategy, successful in more affordable cars, may be less convincing in the C.E.O. class, where spending more is no sin.

Remember, too, that the Equus enters a luxury market that’s vastly more crowded and sophisticated than when Lexus saw its big chance. In 1990, Mercedes was the complacent benchmark, Jaguar was in steep decline and Audi was a blip on the radar. Today, the Lexus LS — the target at which Hyundai has taken dead aim — is hardly the benchmark, but the oldest car in a class overflowing with superb choices.

Personally, if I traded a BMW 7 Series, Audi A8, Mercedes S-Class or Jaguar XJ for this Hyundai, I’d cry myself to sleep at night. The tears would have less to do with brand prestige than with the Equus’s amorphous styling, unpersuasive interior and mild performance.

My wife, Carmen, spent about 20 minutes in the Equus before the atmosphere turned chilly, and it wasn’t because of the body-cooling seats.

“This is the knockoff Louis Vuitton bag you bought in Chinatown,” she said. “It looks cheap, and you’re not fooling anyone.”

Like those street-corner goods, the Equus’s styling rings bells. But there’s something a bit off about the materials, textures and execution. What’s missing is the craftsmanship and design brio that characterize the real deal.

Most cars in this class look big yet graceful; the Hyundai just looks big. The grille is so generic it recalls those hastily drawn Taiwanese news animations of Tiger Woods’s crashed S.U.V. There’s no pride in that face.

The logo also seems lost in translation: if the Equus is a horse, why is there a winged bird on the steering wheel?

The Lexus’s best feature remains its pharaoh-worthy tomb of a cabin, still one of the best places to spend an afterlife of long-distance travel. But aside from the dizzying features list, the Hyundai’s cabin seems on par with $50,000 luxury cars, not 6-figure heads of state. Passengers especially noted the mediocre leather.

The alcantara headliner feels coarse; some switches look plasticky and lack precision. And there’s no trace of a designer’s signature, as in the haute-couture Audi or the swinging London Jag.

Yet every good student begins by mimicking his masters. The Lexus’s 4.6-liter V-8 produces 380 horsepower and 367 pound-feet of torque. The Hyundai’s 4.6-liter V-8 makes 385 horsepower and 333 pound-feet.

According to Car and Driver, the Lexus and Hyundai ran neck-and-neck in a quarter-mile sprint, at 14.5 seconds. The Lexus reached 60 m.p.h. in 6.0 seconds, the Equus in 6.1. Stopping distance from 70 m.p.h.? It was 171 feet for the Lexus, 170 for the Equus.

Did Hyundai engineers, dressed as ninjas, infiltrate Lexus headquarters?

Late this summer, the 2012 Equus will adopt a 5-liter V-8 with 429 horsepower — giving the Equus the most standard horses in its class. An 8-speed transmission will replace the current 6-speed. One wonders why Hyundai didn’t offer the Equus from the get-go with that stronger powertrain.

And if the Hyundai doesn’t quite waft over the road like the Lexus — the Rolls-Royce of Japan, only quieter — it comes comfortably close. For this type of cocooning sedan, I prefer the Lexus’s creamier steering, but the Hyundai actually felt more connected to the road, especially after switching its air suspension to Sport mode.

My aesthetic opposition to the Equus began to fade on a 4-hour highway cruise, when the car’s power, solid structure and impeccable quiet gave me less and less to complain about.

Chalking up miles in the Hyundai — soothed by its 608-watt, 17-speaker Lexicon audio system, admiring that big back seat — I kept thinking of Cadillac and Lincoln. These American brands virtually patented this type of conservative, cavernous sedan. Yet today neither offers a rear-drive V-8 luxo-barge, let alone one this comfy and lavish. If you miss your old Caddy or Town Car and have 60 grand to spend, the Equus may seem like a long-lost friend.

The Hyundai scores again with 1st-rate interfaces, including its central control **** and sharp-looking display screen for navigation, iPods and other functions. You’ll barely need to consult the manual installed on the iPad that comes free with the car.

But if you put the fancy-pants German and British cars into the mix, the comparisons are less kind. The BMW, Jaguar, Audi and Mercedes raise performance, technology and sophistication to levels you won’t find here. Yet those cars cost $20,000 to $35,000 more when similarly equipped.

With its rear center console, the Ultimate seats just 4 passengers, and the single reclining rear seat is a mild head-scratcher: while in Korea the Equus may be chauffeur-driven, Americans — and their significant others — are unlikely to ride much in that catbird seat.

John Krafcik, chief executive of Hyundai of America, says that so far Ultimate buyers tend to be empty-nesters who want to treat friends to a special ride. (My 4-year-old daughter did delight in powering up the legrest and playing with the massage functions).

To help pry buyers from big-shot brands, Hyundai is offering not only 5 years or 60,000 miles of free maintenance, but ensuring that owners don’t have to stick around to watch: a dealer valet will fetch the Equus from home or office and drop off a loaner.

That seems wise not only for customer relations, but to avoid forcing owners to share a Mr. Coffee machine at Hyundai’s dealerships, in contrast to Lexus’s elegant Toyota-free facilities.

That raises a final issue: while the company name is conspicuously absent from the Equus, this remains a Hyundai, not a stand-alone luxury brand. Ask Volkswagen how that worked with its disastrous $80,000 Phaeton sedan. Even stand-alone Infiniti and Acura, nurtured into being by Nissan and Honda, respectively, have failed to gain traction in the market for $50,000-and-up sedans.

Yet Mr. Krafcik said Hyundai was on pace to move 2,500 to 3,000 Equus models this year — the modest, market-seeding number it expected.

Business plan aside, the Equus doesn’t have an original bone it its body, and it needs seasoning. But like a Japanese newcomer 20 years ago, if this Korean upstart can make marquee names cut their bloated prices, that’s a game all luxury buyers can applaud.