The first thing that pops up when you try to research the Hyundai Grandeur is the Hyundai Azera, the flagship mid-size sedan the company sent to the US that still bore the Hyundai “H” and not a pair of Genesis wings. In the company’s home market of South Korea, the Grandeur nameplate goes back nearly 40 years and holds the title as the brand's first entry into the executive luxury segment. To celebrate the car's 35th anniversary in 2021, Hyundai's designers restomodded one as a pet project.Aside from looking like it belongs in a used-car lot in the video game Cyberpunk 2077, the Grandeur received a revamp that took an otherwise unforgettable shape from the decade and turned it into something we’ve found ourselves staring at for extended periods. The Grandeur’s sleeper looks made it unnoticeable in its time. Today, it’s a reminder of how simple design catches the most eyes, especially in the age of child-swallowing Lexus grills and pickups as large as shipping containers. What is the Grandeur? hyundai-grandeur-heritage-1Before there was Genesis, there was the Grandeur. Produced for South Korea and some Middle Eastern countries, the Grandeur was the first executive luxury sedan for both the brand and the country as a whole. Since there was no existing playbook on how to build a luxury sedan in-house, Hyundai reached out to Mitsubishi, which kindly lent the body, powertrains, and most of the internals of its Debonair sedan to Hyundai, so the company could rebadge it as the Grandeur.Mitsubishi kept the AMG-tuned variants of the Debonair for itself, which is a whole different story, though a Korean car made by the Japanese and tuned by some Germans sounds like bundles of fun to us.The second-generation Grandeur would also be a rebadged Debonair as part of a collaboration between Hyundai and Mitsubishi, but it wouldn’t be until the third generation of the Grandeur that Hyundai would build it in-house. This generation of Grandeur made its way to America as the Hyundai XG for the 2001-2005 model years and was christened the Azera in North America from 2006 until its run ended in 2017. Heritage Series Grandeur hyundai-grandeur-heritage-9-1The second vehicle in the brand’s Heritage Series, the car was given a once-over by designers who incorporated modern touches from current offerings into the first-generation Grandeur. The pixel-like LED front and rear lights are a dead giveaway of the spunk hiding beneath its classic design—that spunk being its electric powertrain, which all Heritage Series vehicles have. Inside, the Grandeur restomod promotes a dual-screen instrument cluster and infotainment system, which was starting to gain popularity at the time.Unlike the production cars, the Grandeur gets a specialty, highly capable 18-speaker audio system engineered by South Korean Sound Designer, Guk-il Yu, which is controlled by the screen displaying climate and other features in the center stack. The interior was designed with acoustics in mind, creating concert-hall vibes through its meticulous design and rolling hills of burgundy velvet and Napa leather.hyundai-grandeur-heritage-5-1The Grandeur joins the Hyundai Pony, designed by none other than Giorgetto Giugiaro, as part of this series, which gets designers to “look back on what [Hyundai] created in the past and find inspiration in it,” according to Hak-soo Ha, head of the Interior Group of the Hyundai Design Center. More of these in-house electric restomods were to follow. However, we haven’t heard anything about the next Heritage vehicle since 2021, with Hyundai claiming the next concept would be a revised 1991 Galloper.Another vehicle to come from the Mitsubishi-Hyundai alliance was the 1991 Hyundai Galloper. The automaker initially planned to build its own four-by-four with help from—and this shocked us too—Roush Enterprises, which generally focuses on tuning American vehicles. From Grandeur to Garages hyundai-grandeur-heritage-4-1After the Grandeur concept was revealed, the Ioniq 5 debuted for the 2022 model year, boasting similar design cues from the Grandeur. Those pixel taillights found their way to the 5, along with the connected instrument cluster and infotainment screen. The light signature of all electric models that followed stemmed from both the Grandeur and Pony Heritage concepts.Interestingly, not much else made it to production models from both heritage vehicles. The Grandeur’s bespoke audio system remains, like its host, a concept. Hyundai cars can be equipped with a premium Bose sound system, and Genesis models get either a Lexicon or Bang & Olufsen stereo.hyundai-grandeur-heritage-8-1We would have loved to see the mirrored lighting in the rear make it to production cars, creating a greater illusion of space than the large panoramic glass roofs with no sunshades equipped on too many cars today. Apparently, there’s also a piano that you could play with in the Grandeur to compose your own concerto at stoplights. We’ll take this over Tesla’s gimmicks any day of the week. Hyundai's Latest Concepts HyundaiThe next highly anticipated Hyundai showcar is the Crater Concept, which we hope serves as inspiration for an upcoming electric Toyota 4Runner and Nissan Xterra competitor. Genesis has certainly been tinkering with new ideas, showing off its two-door Magma GT concept, G90 Wingback wagon and coupe, and even the off-road X Skorpio, with only one of those confirmed for production. Hip Heritage or High Hopes? Hyundai Pony HeritageHyundai is far from the first brand that comes to mind when we think of automakers with deep roots and an appreciation of their lackluster past. But every brand has to start somewhere, and rather than hide from its humble beginnings, Hyundai revisited its forays into new markets to serve as hints at coming models.Whether we’ll see more Heritage concepts return (especially after Genesis has flooded the media with a slew of one-offs) is still up for debate. While the company said in one of the Grandeur’s press releases that it would revisit the Galloper, the next off-road concept turned out to be the militaristic Crater, which looks more like the Halo Warthog than the Galloper.Sources: Source A (hyperlinked), Source B (hyperlinked), Source C (hyperlinked, etc)
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