A priceless concept car on a wet Italian hillclimb course is either a bold statement or a calculated risk. Genesis chose both, sending its Magma GT up the Tutto Benne Hillclimb in Mottarone with rain-dappled bodywork and spectators clutching umbrellas.
Footage captured by the NM2255 YouTube channel gives the clearest look yet at the Magma GT doing what it was built to do: moving. The car appears at the 8:38 mark, launches with a bark of wheelspin, and roars away from the line with a soundtrack that leaves zero doubt about what sits behind the cabin.
That would be a twin-turbocharged V-8, believed to produce as much as 800 horsepower. Genesis has been coy with technical specifications since the concept debuted last fall, but the engine note told the story before any press release could.
The driver wasn’t trying to be a hero. Conditions were greasy, and concept cars don’t come with insurance policies. But even at a measured pace, the Magma GT covered ground with a composure that felt less like a show car on parade and more like a machine already engineered to a production standard.
That distinction matters. Genesis has said publicly that it doesn’t build concepts for the fun of it, and everything about the Magma GT’s development trajectory points toward a production car arriving before the end of the decade. The company has hinted at convertible and track-focused variants.
It has shown a Magma GT3 race car concept, signaling intent to compete in endurance racing alongside its GMR-001 prototype. You don’t invest in GT3 homologation for a car you never plan to sell.
Since its debut, the Magma GT has appeared in multiple configurations. Genesis swapped the original orange for a deep green, revealed a leather-lined interior that drew its share of attention, and steadily built a case for a mid-engine supercar from a brand most buyers still associate with luxury sedans and SUVs.
The Mottarone event itself was a spectacle beyond the Genesis. The brand also brought its X Skorpio concept, an aggressive off-roader that spent most of the hillclimb getting sideways with Dakar Rally energy. Oilstainlab showed up with its Half11 prototype, a compressed 911 lookalike that will eventually spawn a production car called the HF-11.
A BMW M3 Touring converted into a full race car made an appearance, along with a Ferrari Monza SP2 that drifted its way up the course, a Mercedes-Benz SLR Stirling Moss, a Bugatti Divo, and the new Bertone Runabout. Even a Piaggio Ape stuffed with a motorcycle engine and wearing Martini livery showed up, because Italian hillclimbs operate by different rules.
But the Magma GT was the one people were watching. Genesis has spent two decades building credibility in the luxury space, and the Magma GT represents the sharpest departure from that playbook the brand has ever attempted. An 800-horsepower mid-engine supercar from Hyundai’s luxury division would have been laughed out of the room in 2015. In 2026, after watching it pull away on a wet mountain road in Italy, nobody’s laughing.
Genesis still hasn’t officially confirmed production. But the car runs, it drives, it climbs hills in the rain, and the GT3 program is already taking shape. The only question left is whether Genesis will price it to compete with McLaren and Ferrari, or undercut them the way it did with every sedan it ever built.
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