Gadgetory

it's name means horse it's badge is a bird maybe that's Hyundai's way of flipping the bird at the horse's ass who drives this car and then still buys an s-class let's drive the 2011 Hyundai Equus and check the tech Honda and Toyota launched new divisions and new brands when they went upscale Hyundai chooses not to bill the Equus says Hyundai virtually nowhere and wears mostly unique badging as if they know they should have launched a new brain 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 just about every other car in the world reflected in it up here in the front I'm getting a lexus LS smashed up with Altima in I hate polished wheels they have never looked worse than on this car overall though the lines are kind of massive and impressive and take it back here and then there's this little kick up that reminds me of a Dodge Charger rather unpleasantly and the taillights keep flicking me back and forth 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 what you're going to see in this car over and over is Hyundai is playing the greatest hits of car tech they're not going to the far edge with anything you can get more cutting-edge kind of out there kind of unproven technology in their pricey or competitors but the core stuff is all here at a shockingly low price first of all navigation on that big 8 inch screen that is standard the map is good it's not the best in the business I'm not going to 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 not touch use a controller down here same thing goes for telephony I've got Bluetooth phone on this guy I've got phonebook connectivity but I don't have a 2 DP bluetooth streaming I don't have a hard drive I can rip music to but I've got a six-disc C changer that also plays DVD again standard I've got 7.1 surround in 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're saving cost again by having a single audio system on this car no complicated line changes that they've got to make our dual vendors that they've got to stock parts from in here stock again USB auxiliary and iPod connector depending on this little 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 trim levels of this car now the stuff you wouldn't expect to get standard I've got a forward-looking anti-collision 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 back here standard on both trim levels very few cars offer that I've got a camera that looks in the back that has two different views looking out or looking down now because our cars 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 out the front at low speeds only you can't sit here and stare at this thing and drive by it it goes off at like I don't know five 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 goodies are in the back now if you've ever wanted to ride in a Maybach but came to your senses and realize you'll never have a Maybach this is the nearest thing to it we have the ultimate package as I mentioned so back here is this crazy kind of first-class airline seat deal I've got this console here and if I push let's see this button it moves the front seat forward all the way let's hope no one's in it folds it forward all the way and then it starts to push my seat like this you know I'm going forward and I'm reclining and I'm also going to get my footrest to go up the problem is unless you're about five feet tall ow ow god this is like one of those secret prisons at the CIA runs in Romania this is actually a torture chamber so it helps to be small if you're going to 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 car so I've got a wireless controller for the massage functions on this guy yeah no kidding the sensor for it is up there on the back of the front seat the one I'm using as an ottoman mode one and two upper back and lower force speed in call versus out call oh wait that's vibration versus vibration speed kind of the same thing oh and by the way also in this center console is a refrigerator with two little can holders in it and yes it gets quite cold in there and finally you've got your 8 inch LCD here that pops up 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 and again we're nowhere near a hundred thousand dollars in this car ok in the engine bay some pretty non hyundai stuff you don't think of these guys doing big v8s that's a big v8 4.6 liter 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 get on the road in a minute 0-60 happens in 6.7 seconds which is fine sprightly but not really fast MPG is 16 city 24 highway and all the power goes through one direction and one 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 the job ok and it's a ZF gearbox from Germany and they tell you that in every piece of marketing materials they got so the real question no one that matters is does this car stack up as a real high-end luxury sedan or is it just kind of putting the trappings together well first thing you notice is its bank vault quiet almost too quiet I was surprised how much tire noise I picked up all the time except on the perfect surfaces out there which there are very few in California you do want the sport button down to get the best response otherwise it's a little bit sluggish that's that low torque number I mentioned you need to ring the most out of it I found shifting it wasn't very interesting I don't know not the kind of car I want a shift to be honest a couple things also we're a little bit off the the steering tries too hard to stay on center that makes big broad sweeping roads kind of tedious but I'll say this I never missed the other one or two gears this transmission could have a lot of folks will turn their nose up at a six-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 seem like it was in elegant and the most important thing is the car feels like it has presence when you're driving it it feels 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 placed presence in this car does that well without being a chore to drive oh did I remind you this is the car that comes with an iPad 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 price a necklace in case you want to buy another one I guess or look at the Hyundai Gallery just in case you want to love their cars so much all this an effort to differentiate this guy from the other high-dollar German and Japanese luxo barges oh it really differentiates it is the price the basic and it's not basic at all Equus is going to be fifty eight nine your only option is sixty-five hundred bucks for the ultimate package that gets you all the bells and whistles in the backseat 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 you