Back in the summer of 2012 I was a new home owner, had just celebrated my 27^th birthday, and had just gotten a pay raise at my job. The sun was shining! My father who was interested in buying a new car to replace his aging but much loved 1996 Mercury Cougar XR7 had asked me if I could look at the Hyundai dealership close to my work at a Sonata. I was happy to oblige and check out the sleek sedan; going to look at cars is always a good time! I snapped a few pictures for my dad but while I was there another car caught my eye, it was a car I was vaguely aware of, the Genesis Coupe. The Genesis Coupe looked like no other Hyundai I had ever seen, sculpted lines flowed over the wide rear end, the long hood sloped tapering off to a menacing grille, large wheels filled the fender arches and behind the wheels were bright red Brembo calipers. “Wow, Hyundai is making a sports car now?” I said out loud to the salesman. I sat in the coupe, the seat hugged my sides. “Wow” I muttered to myself. The salesman seeing the look of desire on my face chimed in “got time for a test drive?” I was on my lunch and a test drive was out of the question, so I scheduled one for a later date. Once I was out of the dealership and no longer breathing the mind control gas that seems to be in cars I like, I started to have more sober thoughts: We’re still paying for our Golf, we are still buying furniture for our new house, we still need to build a fence…. It just wasn’t good timing; sports cars would have to wait. I cancelled my test drive and largely forgot about the Genesis Coupe. My father bought that very Sonata that I looked at and sold the Cougar, a decision he has lamented, but I digress. Pretty soon we too were buying a new car, in April of 2013, we were expecting a child and my miled out 2001 Civic coupe was not going to be an appropriate family car. We bought a brand-new Kia Soul, not a sports car, but if I’m honest, the best car we’ve ever owned. It seemed like sports car ambitions would have to wait much longer…

Now in 2018, a couple of years after getting into some amateur racing, I got the itch to get something a little bit faster than my (slightly fancy civic) Acura EL. The event that really brought this to my attention was taking in an open lapping day at our local track (Castrol Raceway). The EL handled the track day just as good as I could have expected it too, but I found that I was really hitting the limit of what the car could do in its current state. I needed to do some upgrades! It needs new tires, that would probably be the biggest upgrade; the car was also a bit heavy, so I could always strip out the interior as much as possible; the suspension was still a little bit wallowy even after upgrading to RSX components; and the biggest item, a ‘K’ series engine swap would seriously make this a whole new car! After you go racing you find that your mind quickly fills up with a shopping list of what your car needs to be the best. Again, sober thoughts returned after I put the lid back on the rubber cement container; should I actually spend good money on my 13-year-old economy sedan? A motor swap would likely cost $5k! Not to mention I would ruin the thing that the car was already good at, commuting and getting good fuel economy. This was a big gut check. At the same time Darren was putting down a deposit on his 2019 Ecoboost Mustang with performance pack, so sports cars were (and usually are) #1 discussion topic between the three of us. Darren reminded me of the Genesis coupe, which I had written about a year ago. He cited my own writing to me which I immediately thought was something he had read on Motortrend because the writing was excellent hahaha. Turned out 1 year ago Matt knew what was up, knew the Genesis Coupe was a bit of an overlooked hero and that they seemed to be undervalued on the used market. Maybe there was a way I could make this Korean Coupe my new daily driver…..

The hunt was on, research filled my free moments, I absorbed as much as I possibly could and recited information about the Genesis to my wife, who cherishes those conversations I’m sure. Through my research I concluded that the car I wanted was very specifically a 2013 2.0T R-Spec. The 2.0T because it seems to have the most immediate potential for modifications, easily surpassing the power output of the V6 version, plus turbo noises yo! The R-Spec because it is the lightest version, only came with a manual, has the red Brembo brakes and a limited slip differential. The 2013 specifically because it was the first year of the revised Genesis coupe and didn’t have a sunroof. Basically, it’s the stripper performance model.

I kept an eye on classified ads, soon one popped up just around the corner from my work. I walked over at lunch to take a quick look at the car, it looked pretty good from a few feet away but as I got closer a few problems became visible. There was white film all over the trim bits from what was likely the fastest, half-assest polishing job ever performed, there was a large aftermarket exhaust that looked a bit out of place, and worst of all there was a scrape on the lower passenger rear quarter panel. “Ugh, what a shame” I said to myself. I dismissed it and walked away. In the following days I grew more curious about the car, maybe that scrape wasn’t so bad, and the white stuff can get cleaned off easily enough, I could find a new exhaust maybe…. These things could become my tools. It was almost October and the last thing a dealership wants sitting on their lot when the snow is starting to fly is a sports car. Auto sales in the fourth quarter are traditionally slow, with sports car sales being almost nonexistent (in Edmonton).  I knew they wanted that car gone, maybe even a little bit desperately. Over the coming weeks I test drove the car twice and loved it. Now, let’s make a deal, I didn’t need a car, so I leaned heavily on that. I also brought attention to and lamented the visible issues. Things went quiet for a couple of weeks until I got an email from the salesman in a final attempt to make a deal. I went in and sat firm on my final offer which, to my surprise, they accepted. All in I got the car for more than 20% less than their listed price, not a bad deal!

So that was that, now I owned a 2013 Genesis Coupe R-Spec! It sure was a good thing that I didn’t get one back in 2012, this one was much better, this one was modified…. This probably was another problem that made this car a little bit hard to sell for a dealership, but besides the exhaust, which by the way was actually a pretty top quality Tomei Expreme titanium exhaust system; it also has a divorced downpipe, a synapse synaptic blow off valve and charge pipe, and a snappy ceramic coated Injen intake system. All these parts are surprisingly good quality aftermarket stuff, this car wasn’t just some uneducated ricer’s car, someone had actually researched good upgrades! Bonus for me, I would want this stuff anyhow! We will have more to share on the Genesis Coupe in the coming weeks and months. There are a few minor issues to sort out as we continue to learn about my new daily driver. Also a dyno base run would be a fantastic data point. If you or someone you know has a dynojet and good rates for a couple runs let us know!