Walk around Hyundai's new Genesis, stare at it from every possible angle, and you'll swear you've seen it before. Not the car as a whole, mind you, but rather the individual styling cues. The front end, for example, especially the grille, resembles the nose on the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. The profile? Decidedly Lexus LS 460. And the rear, well, there's some Infiniti M there, maybe a little BMW 5 series, too. And speaking of BMW, the Genesis's trunk line appears to be pulled straight from a 7 Series. Or does the front resemble an Infiniti's, the profile a Benz's, and the rear a Lexus's? Our editors' views varied like cell-phone plans, but the consensus was unanimous -- the Genesis looks strangely familiar.

'We didn't want to make the Genesis's styling polarizing,' says John Krafcik, Hyundai's vice president of product development and strategic planning, 'so we were cautious, not going too wild with the design.' Hence, the Genesis wears sheetmetal poured from the automotive melting pot. Fortunately for Hyundai, the end product is neither offensive nor groundbreaking; rather, it's handsome in a deja vu kind of way.

More important to the enthusiast, though: Does it drive as if it were developed in a melting pot? Or is it something all its own? To find out, we gathered three of the vehicles Hyundai benchmarked-the Chrysler 300C from the Genesis's so-called 'competitive set,' and the Lexus GS 460 and Mercedes-Benz E550 from the 'image set' -- and then subjected each sedan to our usual slew of track tests, as well as extensive public road driving, all to determine whether the Genesis is simply a well-executed knockoff -- or a technical knockout.

Does size matter? In the case of the Genesis's engine, not really. Chrysler's renowned 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 possesses over a full liter of additional displacement compared with Hyundai's 4.6, yet produces 35 fewer horses. Granted, the 5.7 makes substantially more torque -- 57 pound-feet -- but its test numbers don't support it, as the Genesis's acceleration times are superior. In fact, with 0-to-60 and quarter-mile runs of 5.5 seconds and 14.0 at 103.7 mph, respectively, the Genesis is quicker than most of the vehicles within its competitive and image sets, including the Infiniti M45, the Lexus GS 460, and the Hemi-fied 300C. The only quicker automatic-equipped sedans that we've tested and Hyundai targeted are the 6.0-liter Pontiac G8 GT (5.3, 13.8 at 102.3) and the 5.5-liter Mercedes-Benz E550 (4.8, 13.4 at 105.3). Not bad for a Hyundai? Not bad for any V-8-powered four-door.