Genesis GMR-001 Le Mans Hypercar's V8 Is Two Turbocharged Rally Car Engines Stuck Together

It's pretty rare to see a genuinely new engine get developed these days even for race cars, especially from smaller automakers that don't have as big of a motorsport presence, so it was shocking when Genesis announced that its upcoming Le Mans Hypercar would be powered by a V8 engine. The Hyundai Motor Group hasn't made a V8 since 2021 when the Tau engine was discontinued, so would the company be coming up with a totally new motor for its GMR-001? Well, not exactly. Genesis Magma Racing team principal Cyril Abiteboul revealed that the LMDh racer's V8 was created by sticking two WRC-derived turbocharged four-cylinder engines together.

Hyundai has competed in the World Rally Championship for the past 12 years, winning the manufacturer's trophy in 2019 and 2020, and Abiteboul was team principal since January 2023 and president since January 2024, so the move makes sense. Abiteboul says the decision to fuse the WRC engines together was largely due to timing and so Genesis wouldn't have to design something new from scratch:

Anyone who knows about engines will appreciate that we only had six months to develop a complete engine. We elected to go with a V-8, precisely because the V-8 was a great opportunity not to have to redesign a complete engine from scratch and instead take inspiration from our [Hyundai Motor Group's] existing WRC [World Rally Championship] engine, a very competitive 1.6-liter turbocharged inline-four that we've been using for several years. We took that engine and made it two times four in line, which gives us a V-8.

Those WRC motors make around 380 horsepower, though without restrictions that figure could surely be boosted up. Current WRC cars are hybrids, all using a spec motor that adds an extra 134 horsepower, but that system won't get carried over in the creation of the V8 as LMDh cars have their own spec hybrid system that uses a 67-hp electric motor. Genesis is also working with famed racing constructor Oreca on the GMR-001's development.

We were in a dearth of cool top-end Le Mans race car designs following Audi's dominating diesel era, but with the LMDh and LMH classes we're finally seeing some wild designs again, and the Genesis might be the best looking one yet. Asked about the relationship between design and performance, Abiteboul said the two go hand-in-hand: 

One of the most famous French aero designers used to say that a nice airplane flies well, too. And I tend to believe that. Sometimes, technical regulations can induce you to design cars that are not necessarily very nice-looking because they are extremely sophisticated. I keep thinking of Formula One because that's where I spent the largest part of my life. There was a period of time when cars were packed with aerodynamic surfaces: lots of wing legs, shark legs and so on and so forth. But in the end, I believe there is no opposition between aesthetics and functionality. In any case, the car that wins is always the more beautiful one.

Abiteboul added that maintaining Genesis' Korean identity is important for the Magma team. That's not just in terms of design (the Magma logo is even a reference to Korean characters), but in how quickly the GMR-001 is coming together. Since its initial debut in Dubai in December Genesis has only shown renderings and a half-scale model of the GMR-001 so far, but the real thing will be unveiled in April before testing begins in August, and it'll be racing in early 2026. "By all standards, we really compressed the timing of what is normally done to an extreme, because we also want to show the speed of Korean culture — or what I'd like to call, Genesis hyperspeed," said Abiteboul.

When the GMR-001 hits the track in the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship season, it'll be up against competitors from Acura, Alpine, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche — Lamborghini has canceled its WEC Hypercar entrant, but Ford will be joining in 2027. Genesis will then join the IMSA SportsCar Championship for the 2027 season. The company will be fielding two cars in each.