A new brand in the luxury segment makes a splash, but is it enough for you to give up the traditional luxury names?

In the beginning, there was just Hyundai, but then the Korean automaker did something crazy: The bargain-oriented brand went upmarket. That move was the culmination of years of delivering more refined and competent cars. But when the Hyundai Genesis arrived in 2008, it turned heads. The larger Equus followed it, and the two were spun off from Hyundai into their own brand, like Frasier was spun off from Cheers. And just like Frasier, the Genesis brand eschews the riffraff and focuses on the finer things in life. Hyundai now calls both cars Genesis and further divvies them up with G80 (the former Genesis model) and G90 (the car formerly known as the Equus).

The G90 is the larger of the two, and it has made quite an impression, delivering the large luxury experience for $30,000 less than the base price of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class. But will that lower price be enough to convince you to ditch a BMW or Mercedes in favor of the newcomer without the luxury name?