What a Ride: A Love Letter to Our Genesis G90’s Air Suspension
We're dumb, so we tried to re-create Lexus' old ad with our buttery smooth Genesis G90 luxury sedan. Did we succeed, or did the glasses come tumbling down?
Studying Genesis’ emergence from beneath the Hyundai shadow, the parallels to Lexus’ birth in 1989 are undeniable. Just as Toyota created Lexus out of whole cloth to shake up the luxury car market then dominated by German makes, Hyundai spun off Genesis—which, unlike with Lexus, began as a single nameplate in the Hyundai lineup, the Genesis sedan—to offer a new luxury player packed with the same value Hyundai’s own cars and SUVs had become known for. So it’s only natural to view the G90 as a kind of 21st-century redux of the original Lexus LS, even if this is Genesis’ third try at a Mercedes S-Class fighter and the smaller Hyundai Genesis was the first real Genesis product out the door.
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Why are we driving down memory lane and playing brand association games? Because when we hunted around for ways to convey in a dorky, simple manner how supremely placid our yearlong G90 sedan test car’s ride quality is, the first thing that popped in our heads was the original Lexus LS’s iconic champagne-glasses-on-the-hood ad.
Formally titled “Balance,” the 1989 TV commercial sought to showcase the then-new LS400 sedan’s refinement by way of a stack of champagne glasses placed on the hood—which stay perfectly in place even as the LS, which is strapped to a rolling road, or dyno, “accelerates” to 145 mph. The takeaway is obvious: that even with the engine spinning the LS’ tires to the equivalent of unrestricted German autobahn speeds, the powertrain’s shifts are so buttery, its vibrations so scarce, that delicate flutes of bubbly placed directly over the engine remain undisturbed.
Naturally, we thought we could re-create Lexus’ ad while one-upping its premise, by stacking some champagne flutes (water-filled, because we’re cheap—and, well, the glasses are also two-piece plastic junk, because, again, we’re cheap) on the roof and actually driving the car around. No dynamometers here—the G90 would bump and roll its way down real-life pavement with its plasti-glass haberdashery. The goal, of course, was to get the G90 to move down the road without spilling any of the glasses or toppling them over.
Did It Work?
Sort of—not really. Problems with our plan sprang up immediately, not least that the G90’s long hood is nowhere near flat like that original Lexus’s was—it instead plunges sexily from the base of the windshield down to the grille, leaving two distinct fender peaks on either side. (The view from the driver’s seat is grand, by the way.) The hood’s angle and convex shape precluded us from placing anything there with any hope it’d stay put without sliding or falling over.
This led to a total-car search for a flat enough surface on which we could stack our crappy plastic booze buckets. The trunk, too, is all curves and such. That left the roof, which is mostly glass; we found that the spot just aft of the front seats, while curved slightly, at least was only curved side to side, not fore and aft. We could stack ten of our glasses there, the base with four glasses, with three atop those, two atop those, and one at the tippy top.
Sure enough, we topped off our glasses, stacked ’em up, and exited our driveway without spillage—until the vibration that had plagued our G90 for a while cropped up and ruined the fun. Interestingly, it was that exercise that spurred us to try again with a repair—successfully, we might add—and so with the G90 back in our possession, its axle fixed, vibe-free, we tried this idiotic test one more time. We made it up to about 10 mph before the glasses collapsed all over the roof, and yes, we used the accelerator pedal, though we let the car gingerly roll off the line after releasing the brake.
Wind was the enemy, not the Genesis’ ride quality. Our test took place behind a thicket of trees—as soon as the G90 emerged from their cover, the mild gusts present that day knocked the glasses over. (We know this for certain because we tried setting up our stacked pyramid outside of the tree cover, only for it to continually blow over with the G90 stationary.) Did we outdo Lexus? In terms of advertising quality, no. But the G90 is remarkably smooth, and yes, that includes its twin-turbocharged and supercharged V-6 engine.
Achieving even 10 mph over a wavy, imperfect service road with our stacked glasses staying in place is a testament to the G90’s pillowy air suspension, adaptive dampers, and clever software that helps those components prepare for bumps ahead of time. As do certain Mercedes models, the G90 scans the road ahead, studying its surface, and using that info to inform the suspension components to either relax or, for bigger imperfections and speed bumps, to both relax and lift the body about an inch for better clearance.
Drivers can set the G90’s ride height to its taller setting using a dashboard switch to the left of the wheel, though at unspecified higher speeds the car reverts to its regular height unless something presents itself that necessitates lifting again. Even the G90’s owner’s manual doesn’t say what the cutoff speed is for the higher suspension level, but we’ve made it up to 45 mph without the car lowering itself, suggesting you can keep your Genesis in a de-facto off-road mode for extended rough-road driving. Should the G90 detect a steep slope ahead, or rough roads, or speed bumps, it’ll automatically raise itself; sometimes, when stopped at lights, we can feel the car rise after a braking event, apparently in preparation for bumps to come. At highway speeds, with the road ahead smooth, the suspension drops subtly—even from the “normal” ride height, for better aerodynamics.
In practice, all this bump-alertness works like magic—and makes the G90 impervious to speed bumps. Those stubby rubber ones? Don’t even slow down; the G90 floats over them with barely a quiver from its body. Full-on, road-width pavement numbers? Those you may need to slow down for slightly, but the G90’s huge wheelbase and raised suspension height still make them traversable at far higher speeds than you’d expect. Overdo it, and the biggest consequence is some notable body dive on the far side and a louder wheel impact. We didn’t fully send it, of course, so we’re not sure what happens if you pummel a speed bump at 50 mph—we’d suggest not doing that, though taking them on at saner speeds is smoother in the higher suspension setting.
Keep in mind, the G90 (at least, our e-Supercharger variant) rides on 21-inch wheels with relatively low-profile tires, and the ride quality is superb. A non-supercharged G90 we’ve driven rolled on 20s, and its ride was just as cushy, despite lacking our G90’s multi-chamber air suspension. And the tuning is pure king-of-the-road stuff: There’s just a hint of dive, squat, and lean from the suspension’s initial responses to throttle, braking, and steering inputs, enough to let you know the G90 is big and solid. The suspension is so cosseting, it is as much a comfort feature as the massaging seats, Bang & Olufsen audio system, and power window shades. In that sense, the G90 delivers the same jarringly luxurious aura as Lexus’ first LS did way back when. We’ve also driven that car recently—in Texas, too, where our G90 lives—and the similarities between its suspension tune and this G90’s are almost spooky.
More on Our Long-Term 2023 Genesis G90:
- Damn You People, Go Back to Your Shanties!
- Highway Driving Assist II: Not Driving Is a Luxury
- Candles that Smell Like the Car? Really?
- Tiny Fender Bender, Big Buck Repair
- Our G90 Perfumes Its Cabin (Yep!)
- The Key to Enjoying Our G90? No Key At All
- How Are Those Power-Closing Doors Holding Up?
- Does the Onboard Sterilizer Clean a Phone?
- Burn After Repairing? Our G90’s Diagnosis Saga
A lifelong car enthusiast, I stumbled into this line of work essentially by accident after discovering a job posting for an intern position at Car and Driver while at college. My start may have been a compelling alternative to working in a University of Michigan dining hall, but a decade and a half later, here I am reviewing cars; judging our Car, Truck, and Performance Vehicle of the Year contests; and shaping MotorTrend’s daily coverage of the automotive industry.
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