logo
Genesis is Bringing Prestige Black Models to the U.S. This Year

Genesis is Bringing Prestige Black Models to the U.S. This Year

Yahoo04-04-2025

Genesis is planning to bring its range-topping Prestige Black models to the United States later this year.
When it arrives, the trim will be available on the , , , and models.
The black-on-black models were already available in other markets and will be added to the U.S. lineup in late 2025.
As Genesis rounds the corner on its 10th birthday, the brand is continuing to increase its cachet in the United States. In a new move to step up its game, Genesis is planning to add Prestige Black models to the top of its U.S. lineup later this year.
For now, at least, the trim will be exclusive to the G80, G90, GV80, and GV80 Coupe. The less expensive models will be left out, with the GV60, G70, and GV70 SUVs not gaining the new trim.
As the name hints, the Prestige Black models get the typical all-black-everything treatment. That means black paint, black wheels, black badges, black trim, and an interior that's dressed like the New Zealand national rugby team. A spokesperson for the automaker told Car and Driver that there will be some options unique to the U.S.-Prestige Black models, but declined to give specifics.
Even small details, such as the switchgear in the cabin, along with the key, get the all-black treatment. The Prestige Black models also gain exclusive welcome and goodbye animations on their respective infotainment systems.
In Korea, where the Prestige Black models are already on sale, owners of the top trim are given exclusive access to a private Genesis Lounge with a bar, dining room, and sound room. Car and Driver confirmed with Genesis that there are no current plans to build additional lounges, but as the brand continues to look for opportunities to increase its reputation in North America, we can see those plans changing.
We'll have to wait until closer to late 2025 when Genesis officially brings the new trim stateside before we get pricing specifics, but it's certain to carry a premium over the current range-topping models.
You Might Also Like
Car and Driver's 10 Best Cars through the Decades
How to Buy or Lease a New Car
Lightning Lap Legends: Chevrolet Camaro vs. Ford Mustang!

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

1990 Toyota 4Runner Driven: Finally a Four-Door
1990 Toyota 4Runner Driven: Finally a Four-Door

Car and Driver

time8 hours ago

  • Car and Driver

1990 Toyota 4Runner Driven: Finally a Four-Door

From the August 1989 issue of Car and Driver. Since the dusty dawn of modern off­-roading, most mini-trucks with enclosed rear passenger quarters made do with two doors. That's changing faster than the weathered face of the still-wild West. Consider Toyota's 4Runners. Tall and tough trucklets from the rogues' gallery of 4Runners have glowered on the want­ed lists of sport-utility buyers for years. Now Toyota has fattened its hand with a rework of the whole 4Runner lot—in­cluding the handy option of hanging an extra pair of doors on each truck. The new range includes two-door, four-wheel-drive models that are strong­ly reminiscent of the early tough-guy 4Runners, plus thoroughly civilized four-doors fitted with a choice of two- or four-wheel drive. Each chassis layout includes two en­gine choices: a four-cylinder or a V-6. The rear-drive models offer only a four-­speed automatic transmission, but those propelled by four wheels can be paired with either the automatic or a five-speed manual gearbox. Toyota also offers a shift-on-the-move system that lets you snick into four-wheel drive at speeds up to 50 mph. Called 4WDemand, it's stan­dard with the V-6 and optional with the four-cylinder. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver Elbow past the extra doors, the added civility, and the familiar looks and logos and you see that the new breed was bred to be "bad" from the knobbies up. Yet Toyota's priority was to make the 4Run­ner all-around better by making it all-of­-a-piece. That meant doing away with yes­teryear's detachable fiberglass top. The 4Runner made its reputation for tough­ness as a pickup saddled with make-do weather protection—something like an early Conestoga wagon, albeit far more hospitable. It worked: for the past three years, Toyota's saddle-soaping of details put the 4Runner atop the sport-utility ranks in the JD. Power & Associates' Compact Truck Customer Satisfaction Index. Still, the factory wants the 4Runner to show schoolmarm manners with­out giving up old-hand toughness. So rather than tacking on a fibrous shell, Toyota builds a steel roof integral with the new and stronger unit body. Now it's all tight. Depending upon how you buy op­tions, you can brew up fixings from milquetoast mild to mountain-man wild. The trucks' stance, sheetmetal, and exte­rior trim leave no doubt that Toyota wants its 4Runners to rise from the land­scape with a meaty presence. Their curb weights, which range from about 3600 to 4150 pounds, live up to their looks. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver Taking a seat in many two-door mini­-trucks calls first for clambering up to cab height—a tallish task due to most mini­-trucks' lofty pretensions of being barely minimized maxi-trucks. Then the tight packaging pinches access to the back seat, even for flexible youths. Two doors are fine as far as they go, suggesting a certain spartan sportiness, but older and stiffer folks can scissor into the back only through torso-twisting contortions. Thanks to the more modern four-door mini-trucks, including the new 4Runner, passengers' transitory aches and pains go the way of Conestogas on the Santa Fe Trail: into oblivion. Consider main­stream sport-utility wagons that take on five-door convenience through four doors and a tailgate: the Isuzu Trooper II, the Jeep Cherokee/Wagoneer, and the Mitsubishi Montero. (Toyota's Land Cruiser, heftier and costlier than the 4Runner, has hauled the sport-utility faithful since about the time Moses said he didn't want to get his sandals wet. Age works against the Land Cruiser, though, when you idle it up beside products of fresher thinking.) The new 4Runners embody talents ex­tracted from the mountain goat, the Conestoga, and the touring car. Meant to traverse the badlands, they also ditty-bop through the good life. You feel the new­found structural solidity and a blissful in­fusion of mechanical smoothness. The isolation from NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) often makes the 4Run­ners feel eerily removed from the action of the moment. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver We sampled a gaggle of 4Runners in the deserts, forests, and mountains of northern New Mexico. The Toyotas had to brave power-sapping altitudes, mak­ing us wish for instant turbo kits, but re­vealed a glimpse of their repertoire through the 4wd paradise between Santa Fe and Taos. The 4Runners' interiors come across as handsome as the exteriors, which you could classify as strong, silent types. The designs and materials applied to Toyota's truck interiors rank alongside those fitted into its best cars. That puts them near the top for concept, comfort, fit, and finish. From basic seating to complex sound systems, the top-notch mate­rials, logical design, and righteous execu­tion seem to come through. Those parts we can be pretty sure of. We'll reserve judgment on the suspen­sions, brakes, and powertrains. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver Each 4Runner's chunky nose sits up on control arms, torsion bars, gas shocks, and an anti-roll bar. The rear holds up its end with a rigid axle, four trailing links, coil springs, gas shocks, and an anti-roll bar. The power-assisted steering turns via a recirculating ball (and slowly, at 5.2 turns lock-to-lock, which helps cushion off-road nastiness). The burly brake system bulges with vented discs up front and drums in the rear. We focused on the upmarket 4Runner we'd be most attracted to, the 4WD SR5 V-6 with the five-speed stick. Toyota out­fitted it with optional 7.0-by-15-inch al­loy wheels and matching 31x10.50R-15 M+S tires, plus a standard 10.2 inches of rock-avoiding ground clearance. The sweet manual gearbox helps sustain zip that would otherwise be lost to the elas­ticity of the even-smoother automatic. In the high country especially, the 150-hp 3.0-liter V-6 pulls its load much more easily than the 116-hp 2.4-liter four. Though unrelated, both engines are electronically fuel injected and fitted with a belt-driven single-overhead-cam lay­out. The four-cylinder offsets some of its horsepower disadvantage by making its peak torque at 2800 rpm, a useful 600 revs lower than the V-6's max-grunt point. Both engines pump valves and whirl cranks with lubricious ease. Very little crosstalk between components pen­etrates the veil of isolation that drapes the firewall and enfolds the drivetrain. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver Sport-utility vehicles now knock off more than a million sales per year. Toyota would like ten percent of this growing market by the mid-1990s, a threefold increase in its share. Because all of the vehicles we drove were proto­types, we can't predict with confidence how Toyota's new sport-utilities will do: like all strong, silent, tough guys new in town and dressed to kill, the new 4Run­ners remain unknown quantities. What we do know is that the 4Runner V-6 that caught our eye will sell for about $18,000. That seems a reasonable sum to pay for four-star four-play. Specifications Specifications Year Make Model Trim Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear/4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon PRICE Base: $18,000 (est) //Base price of vehicle as described in specs hed// Options: Option 1, $XXXX; Option 2, $XXXX ENGINE SOHC 12-valve V-6, iron block and aluminum heads, port fuel injection Displacement: 181 in3, 2958 cm3 Power: 150 hp @ 4800 rpm Torque: 180 lb-ft @ 3400 rpm TRANSMISSION 5-speed manual CHASSIS Suspension, F/R: control arms/live axle Brakes, F/R: 11.3-in vented disc/11.6-in drum Tires: Bridgestone Desert Dueler M+S DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 103.3 in Length: 196.5 in Width: 68.1 in Height: 67.3 in Curb Weight: 4050 lb EPA FUEL ECONOMY (PROJECTED) City/Highway: 16/18 mpg C/D TESTING EXPLAINED

Airstream's New Trailer Embodies Frank Lloyd Wright's Designs
Airstream's New Trailer Embodies Frank Lloyd Wright's Designs

Car and Driver

time10 hours ago

  • Car and Driver

Airstream's New Trailer Embodies Frank Lloyd Wright's Designs

Airstream has partnered with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation for a new limited-edition travel trailer. The Usonian trailer employs many of the design principles found in Wright's architectural masterpieces, such as the Taliesin West property used by Wright as a winter home. The limited-edition camper costs $184,900, and only 200 units will be built. Compared with the multi-level rectilinear look of Fallingwater and the monolithic rotunda of New York's Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West home in Scottsdale, Arizona, cuts a far subtler silhouette. The property, which served as Wright's winter oasis and is now home to the famed architect's eponymous foundation, consists of a series of low-slung buildings that blend into the surrounding desert. But while Taliesin West lacks the grand presence of some of Wright's other creations, it perfectly encapsulates many of his design philosophies. So, when Airstream—maker of those iconic aluminum campers—decided to partner with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation on a new limited-edition trailer, Taliesin West was the ideal inspiration. Airstream Airstream Airstream Airstream Airstream Airstream Airstream Caleb Miller Associate News Editor Caleb Miller began blogging about cars at 13 years old, and he realized his dream of writing for a car magazine after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University and joining the Car and Driver team. He loves quirky and obscure autos, aiming to one day own something bizarre like a Nissan S-Cargo, and is an avid motorsports fan.

2025 Toyota 4Runner Limited Test: New Dog, Some New Tricks
2025 Toyota 4Runner Limited Test: New Dog, Some New Tricks

Car and Driver

timea day ago

  • Car and Driver

2025 Toyota 4Runner Limited Test: New Dog, Some New Tricks

The existence of the Toyota 4Runner is up there with other universal constants, like the speed of light in a vacuum. It exists beyond time and space. When we all become dust in the wind, the 4Runner will still be there, offering up its anachronistic blend of truck-adjacent versatility for whatever buyers still wander about the wasteland. After an impressive 15-year run, the sun has set on the fifth-gen model. The new 2025 4Runner brings some much-needed improvements to the table, but the general formula remains the same—not always to positive effect. That's particularly true in a trim like this Limited that presumably will spend most of its days on pavement. Exterior and Interior The fifth-generation 4Runner's design wasn't bad by any stretch, but looking at it for so long got a little tiring. Since everybody likes their SUVs as macho as humanly possible, the new 4Runner's style leans heavy on the chunk. Even in our test example's mall-crawler Limited spec, the 4Runner has an imposing silhouette. The edges are a little more rounded off than on its Land Cruiser sibling, but it's clear the two are cut from the same rectilinear cloth. View Interior Photos Andi Hedrick | Car and Driver Inside, the 4Runner finally gets a cabin that was designed with modern tech in mind. The Limited sports a honkin' 14.0-inch touchscreen that dominates the dashboard, but there remains a healthy assortment of physical switchgear to manipulate. The controls are big and chunky enough to be used with gloves on. In fact, everything in here has a kind of low-polygon vibe to it, something Toyota has been relying on in recently revised models to good effect. The 4Runner is a little tall, but our model came wearing power running boards, a $1005 option that made ingress and egress a little easier, even if deployment isn't very quick. Ours also had the $1330 optional third row; these jump seats are best left to children, but they will hold adults in a pinch, both literally and figuratively. Things feeling a little cramped in the back? Don't worry, the rear window still rolls down, giving the wayback some much needed breeze. Andi Hedrick | Car and Driver View Interior Photos Andi Hedrick | Car and Driver New Powertrain The 4Runner's powertrain was also modernized, though it doesn't always feel that way. Toyota's 4.0-liter V-6 is finally free to cash its Social Security checks on a Fort Lauderdale beach. In its place is a turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder producing 278 horsepower and 317 pound-feet of torque, and an available hybrid boosts output even further but can't be combined with the third row of seats. Our three-row Limited was thus equipped with the base engine, which produces a note that lands somewhere between "coarse" and "unpalatable," though its pronounced turbo whistle is kinda fun. The eight-speed automatic may have more gears than its predecessor, but it feels no smoother. HIGHS: Modern interior, beefy looks and the capability to match, roll-down rear glass still rocks. With the base engine, motivation is ho-hum. At the test track, this 5111-pound SUV needs an unimpressive 7.5 seconds to reach 60 mph; from a 5-mph roll, it takes 8.2 seconds. Breaking into triple digit club requires 20.2 seconds. The brakes are decent, taking 170 feet to stop from 70 mph, but the pedal is squishy and builds little confidence in around-town driving. It feels like the first couple inches of pedal movement are for display purposes only. After that, you need to apply so much pressure that you might wonder if you forgot to option power brakes. View Exterior Photos Andi Hedrick | Car and Driver On-Road Driving We've taken the 4Runner off-road alongside its fancier Land Cruiser relative, and while it remains eminently capable in the dirt, the new 4Runner also remains a task to daily drive. It is large, it is heavy, and it is ponderous. While the new model does steer better than its predecessor, the steering still feels a smidge lazy. Ride quality over pockmarked pavement is mediocre at best. Even though our test example has adaptive dampers, it still suffered pronounced body-on-frame jiggle; its softest Comfort mode doesn't quell the jiggling but does allow it to wallow more. There are also two different Sport modes, both of which are uncomfortable and make precisely zero sense on a truck-based SUV. Real-deal pickup trucks with empty beds and passive dampers handle better than this thing. Unsurprisingly, the 4Runner doesn't exhibit a lot of grip, orbiting around our skidpad with 0.74 g of stick. The 20-inch Dunlop Grandtrek PT5A all-season tires might not produce a ton of grip, but they do loudly clomp over expansion joints and potholes. When the wind picks up, it slaps against the 4Runner's many flat surfaces, also contributing to the in-cabin din that seems noisier than the 69 decibels we recorded inside at 70 mph. LOWS: Uncomfortable ride, ungainly handling, rough-around-the-edges powertrain. During the fifth-gen 4Runner's extremely long life, it enjoyed a spot all to itself in the lineup. But now that the Land Cruiser has been redesigned as a smaller but no less versatile unit, there's some overlap. The $58,850 Limited is the fanciest nonhybrid 4Runner trim on offer, and our test truck tacked on a few options, bringing its total to $62,875. Its pre-options price is in line with the $58,150 base Land Cruiser 1958, and our as-tested price isn't far from the fancier Land Cruiser's $62,920 window sticker. View Exterior Photos Andi Hedrick | Car and Driver If you're willing to throw a few more dollars at your monthly car note, you do get a bit more from the Land Cruiser. A hybrid is standard there, whereas it's an extra-cost option on the 4Runner Limited and other trims. The LC might be a bit less capable off-road in certain aspects, given it can't be had in the 4Runner's available TRD Pro and Trailhunter setups, but that trade-off results in a bit more on-road placidity. Neither would be considered a bargain, though. As has been the case in the past, attempts to tame the Toyota 4Runner's rough-and-tumble nature with on-road-oriented trims like the Limited have done little to make this body-on-frame SUV feel less out of place in the Target parking lot. In that sense, the 2025 model is much like its forebears. But at least you know what you're getting into. VERDICT: A truck-based SUV that doesn't stray far from its past. Specifications Specifications 2025 Toyota 4Runner Limited 4WD Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear/4-wheel-drive, 7-passenger, 4-door wagon PRICE Base/As Tested: $58,850/$62,875 Options: third-row seating, $1330; power running boards, $1005; gloss-black roof-rail cross bars, $420; Tow Tech package (trailer reverse assist, interior rearview mirror display), $400; LED liftgate light, $200; accessory-ready LED lantern, $160; retractable black cargo cover, $135; 4Runner carpeted cargo mat, $130; TRD panel air filter, $90; bright-chrome wheel locks, $90; towing-ball mount, $65 ENGINE turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve inline-4, aluminum block and head, port and direct fuel injection Displacement: 146 in3, 2393 cm3 Power: 278 hp @ 6000 rpm Torque: 317 lb-ft @ 1700 rpm TRANSMISSION 8-speed automatic CHASSIS Suspension, F/R: control arms/live axle Brakes, F/R: 13.4-in vented disc/13.2-in vented disc Tires: Dunlop Grandtrek PT5A 265/55R-20 113V M+S DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 112.2 in Length: 194.9 in Width: 77.9 in Height: 73.1 in Passenger Volume, F/M/R: 56/44/36 ft3 Cargo Volume, Behind F/M/R: 84/45/12 ft3 Curb Weight: 5111 lb C/D TEST RESULTS 60 mph: 7.5 sec 1/4-Mile: 15.7 sec @ 90 mph 100 mph: 20.2 sec Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec. Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 8.2 sec Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 3.9 sec Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 5.2 sec Top Speed (gov ltd): 115 mph Braking, 70–0 mph: 170 ft Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.74 g C/D FUEL ECONOMY Observed: 18 mpg EPA FUEL ECONOMY Combined/City/Highway: 21/20/24 mpg C/D TESTING EXPLAINED Reviewed by Andrew Krok Managing Editor, Reviews Cars are Andrew Krok's jam, along with boysenberry. After graduating with a degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009, Andrew cut his teeth writing freelance magazine features, and now he has a decade of full-time review experience under his belt. A Chicagoan by birth, he has been a Detroit resident since 2015. Maybe one day he'll do something about that half-finished engineering degree.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store