Hyundai Genesis coupe is more primitive than prim

In the beginning, there was Hyundai, and it was without form, and darkness was upon the face of the brand.

And it's still pretty dark.

Yes, we're all very impressed with Hyundai's robust sales numbers, the company's monster 10-year warranty and the new Hyundai Genesis sedan, which was voted 2009 North American Car of the Year by a group of powerful and influential automotive journalists who were found sleeping under a bridge.

But what does the brand mean? If anything, the cursive H stands only for a kind of predatory cheapness that undercuts Honda/Acura and Toyota/Lexus. As cars like the Azera and Sonata demonstrate, in a coldly calculated dollar-for-value comparison, you just can't beat a Hyundai.

So what. No one ever wrote a misty-eyed heavy metal ballad to the glory of the bargain equation. No one ever serenaded with a mariachi band beneath the window of extended warranties. Hyundai is a brand utterly devoid of romance, poetry or inspiration. The very word affects me like a jeroboam of ether.

That's why, above and beyond the particulars of cornering grip and acceleration, the new Hyundai Genesis coupe is a good idea. This company can spread all the high-tech marmalade it likes over its cars, but until it starts fashioning an emotional back story, a cool image, a creation myth of its own, the brand will never embody anything more than likable appliances.

The formula for generating passion in a car brand is eternally performance, and preferably motor sports -- big, smoky, loud and stupid motor sports. Enter famed performance driver Rhys Millen, who will race a Genesis Coupe this year in various "drifting" competitions.

Drifting is kind of like figure skating with cars, with the drivers pitching the cars sideways and spinning the tires so that they slide around the course trailing clouds of choking tire smoke (much to the dismay of local birds).

As a thinking man's sport, drifting has an I.Q. of about 40; but it does handily illustrate the salient feature of the Genesis coupe: its rear-wheel drive, which is something of a rarity in this price category. The Genesis coupe finds itself in the rowdy, budget-minded ranks of the Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro, Nissan 370Z and Dodge Challenger.

It remains to be seen how the young males/early hominids in the drifting demographic will respond to the Genesis coupe, but the car certainly has some asphalt chops.