Genesis GV80

It's not yet a year since the first cars bearing the Genesis brand turned a wheel on UK soil, but remember the name. The GV80 flagship is the Audi Q7 or BMW X5 you always wanted

- Darren Styles

Say hello to the biggest car brand you’ve (probably) never heard of. A car brand that, just as Phil Collins and his band leave the stage for the last time, intends to jockey unashamedly for their Google ranking. Say hello to Genesis.

Long story short: Genesis is to Hyundai as Lexus is to Toyota, and as Audi is to Volkswagen — a standalone, premium spin-off from a mainstream volume brand. As a result, there’s the potential for good and not-so-good therein.

Good: if you’re to buy a car from an all-new make, then it’s comforting to know that its design, development and build is in the hands not of a plucky start-up but of seasoned, well-resourced engineers who understand the fundamentals. Without this, you end up assembling a Tesla 3 beneath an awning in the car park.

Not-so-good: you can end up paying more for the same thing underneath, with more than a whiff of the Emperor’s new clothes. An Audi A3 is lovely, but we all know there’s a perfectly good Volkswagen Golf under there, right?

My first acquaintance with Genesis suggests this might be different, however.