Genesis’ presence at the race track was unmissable. From the outside, its hospitality building was fairly unassuming, painted black with small-ish Genesis logos, though at three stories tall it was bigger than the Ford, Aston Martin, Toyota and Ferrari buildings nearby. It was positioned just before the entrance to the pit lane. From the building, there was a view down the final straight and great sightlines for the last few corners, with viewing decks on all three floors. Inside, the space was beautiful and quiet, with lots of places to sit, eat, and watch the race on TVs or through the windows.
The Magma Racing team’s branding is pretty phenomenal. The square-triangle-square logo is a stylization of the Korean characters for MGM (“Magma”), and all of the black and orange team kit and merch was simple and fantastic. Le Mans was the first time the team was racing with the orange gradient livery on the cars instead of a greyscale one. The gradient doppler effect symbolizes speed and heat, and it has the Korean characters for Magma stretched across the bodywork, a pattern also found on all the branding. Beyond the 400-ish media that Genesis invited (some of who wore swag on race day), it had tons of its own employees at the race, all decked out in the team’s colors, and there were clearly scores of fans in the crowd as well. It can be hard to stand out in a field of eye-catching liveries and outfits, but both the Genesis team and its fans did so.
In the publicly-accessible Manufacturer Village, most of the automakers with cars in the race had big auto show–like stands showing off different vehicles and selling merch, as well as activations and activities. Toyota had a GT-One on display, which was incredible to look at, and I’m not too sad to have missed seeing the Ferrari Luce. Genesis’ building there was once again huge, and more cool and shaded than the other stands. Inside there was an Electrified GV70, a long-wheelbase Electrified G80 and a full-scale model of the GMR-001, but everyone was staring at the Magma GT3 concept that had been revealed the night before.
I did not buy any of Genesis’ merch, though lots of people did. Nor did I buy the Peugeot E-208 GTi shoes, which former Jalop Alanis King dubbed the Shoegeots. No, I spent my hard-earned Euros on a bunch of things with Bibendum on them at Michelin’s huge booth, like a great trucker hat and an absolutely sick bomber jacket. Le Mans’ official merch was pretty killer as well, and in general, it was hard to find anyone in the crowd that wasn’t repping automotive merch in some way, be it a full outfit, a hat or bag, or a flag being waved around.
