Genesis Twin-Turbo V8 Comes Alive as GMR-001 Hypercar Development Accelerates

The engineering team successfully fired up the racy engine for the first time

If it seems like just a week has passed since the Genesis Hypercar reveal, that’s because, well, it has. But the Korean automaker has wasted no time in getting the car’s radical new powertrain going. Despite having little more than a full-size model to go on, the brand is already celebrating, having gotten the car’s exotic twin-turbo V8 engine to turn over for the first time. It marks the conclusion of what was likely a grueling eight months of initial engine development handled by the experienced hands and minds over at Hyundai Motorsport. More importantly, it marks a major milestone in the life story of the GMR-001 Hypercar.

The mighty V8 is ready to go, but the work is far from over

Genesis, or even its parent company, Hyundai, probably isn’t the first automaker that jumps to mind when you hear “twin-turbo V8.” After all, the last Genesis model powered by a V8 has long since left the production line. Perhaps fitting, then, that the twin-turbo V8 powerplant borrows heavily from the inline-four cylinder motor you’ll find under the hood of Hyundai Motorsports WRC cars. Hyundai says the two engines share 60 percent of their parts, too. “Rallying is a sort of endurance race, so for an engine to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it’s a good place to start from,” says François-Xavier Demaison, Technical Director at Hyundai Motorsport.

“The first part of the project was to extrapolate what we knew from the WRC engine into endurance racing,” Demaison continues. He says the next step was focusing on efficiency and reliability improvements, and total assembly time ended up around four weeks. That said, this first startup is right on schedule, but there’s still a lot to do. Future steps include stress tests in short- and long-term intervals, heat cycling, dynamometer runs, and lots of other reliability checks. Then, Hyundai and Genesis Magma Racing — the automaker’s new motorsport arm — will bolt up the transmission and hybrid unit that all LMDh cars are required to run.

The GMR-001 Hypercar will race in IMSA and more

Not familiar with the GMR-001 Hypercar? Genesis is launching a sub-brand dubbed Magma, and its biggest project yet is the GMR-001 Hypercar. The GMR-001 Hypercar is an LMDh prototype racer that will fight it out with similar prototypes from Porsche, BMW, and Cadillac. It marks the most ambitious Hyundai factory racing program to date and builds on the manufacturer’s successful TCR and WRC campaigns of the last year. Like all LMDh cars, the GMR-001 will make roughly 670 horsepower. It will share underpinnings with race cars from Acura and Alpine, relying on a chassis sourced from Oreca.

Final thoughts

Hyundai says that on-track testing will start later this year. It’s an ambitious calendar for any automaker, let alone one making its debut in the world of prototype racing. Perhaps most surprising is the fact that LMDh racing currently touts the highest level of factory involvement across mainstream motorsports. That means there’s even more glory on the line, but it also means fierce competition. Time will tell if Hyundai really has the stuff to hang at the highest levels.