Hyundai Genesis is North American car of the Year 2008

The luxury car mart foray by Hyundai has proved meaningful, with the car maker’s Genesis model being picked for the North American Car of the Year Award. The South Korean automaker’s first North American Car of the Year award came as a big applause for the company.

A source said that the Genesis finshed closely ahead of the Flex, a seven-passenger crossover vehicle from auto giant Ford Motor. The Gensis, which debuted a year ago as a rear-wheel-drive vehicle, had catapulted Hyundai to the league of the world’s top-end automakers. Genesis has as its rivals luxury models such as the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, BMW AG’s 5-Series and Toyota Motor Corp’s Lexus GS.

The Hyundai Genesis comes powered by a V-6 engine that delivers 290 horsepower. The Genesis engines have proved to be environmentally-friendly. It boasts of addedcabin space than the BMW 5-Series and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, said reviews. According to the company, Genesis marks a new beginning for the South Korean majoras its represents the engineering excellence true to the car maker.. While Ford Motor Co drove away with the top truck honors for its Ford F-150, the other finalist for car of the year was the Volkswagen Jetta TDI. The two other North American Truck of the Year finalists were Chrysler LLC’s Dodge Ram pickup and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz ML 320 Bluetec. It has been pointed out that the award fro Ford comes about as a major laurel as the F-150 has already proved to be the best-selling vehicle in the US. It was also named 2009 Truck of the Year by Motor Trend magazine recently.

The awards, given away by a group of 50 automotive journalists from the US and Canada, are picked after close scruity of the vehicles with regard to factors that include innovation, design, safety, handling, driver satisfaction and value. This year around, as many as 50 new vehicles were eligible for scrutiny. However, the judges scaled down the competition to 14 cars and 11 trucks before the finalists were named.