Developing a chassis with a bent toward performance is a lot like determining a psychological profile. (Stay with us here.) Skilled engineers are holding the clipboards, entrusted with coming up with a unique, driver-focused proposition. Meticulous and exact tuning is an integral step in defining the character of a new performance car. Suspension tuning is an iterative process that goes beyond installing stiff shocks and sticky tires.
The ability to turn workaday sedans, coupes, and SUVs into purpose-built sports cars by injecting performance has fomented the creation of automotive icons. It’s what turned the run-of-the-mill Pontiac Tempest into the wild, smoky, and delightful GTO. It’s why the “Engineered by Lotus” sticker mounted on the world’s most interesting cars makes you unexpectedly excited. It’s the raison d’être for engineering powerhouses like AMG, Alpina, and Polestar. Beyond substituting, performance tuning is a philosophy that goes further than balance sheets and sales projections. It’s a mantra that appeals to emotion, more than anything else, with the goal of satisfying the ever-discerning enthusiast driver. It’s a challenge that the product team at Genesis embraced when tasked with creating a variant of the G80 that could take on the most capable, competent, and established sports sedans on the market. Turning the G80 into the first ever performance model for the brand, the 2018 Genesis G80 Sport, wo...