When the first Hyundai Excels rolled onto American roads in the late-1980s, it was hard to image the Korean automaker getting taken seriously as a builder of budget cars. Taking on the likes of Mercedes-Benz and BMW would have been an absurd thought. And yet later this year that is exactly what Hyundai is doing as the new Equus begins to arrive at American dealers.

Visually, the the Equus hasn't changed much in its trip across the Pacific. For the U.S. market, the winged hood ornament had been discarded in favor of a flush mounted badge with the same logo that adorned the trunk lid of the Korean market model. The bars of the grille have been replaced with horizontal slats that make it look more like the Genesis sedan.

The Equus is equipped with all the techno-gimmickry one expects in a big luxury sedan today, including adaptive cruise control and navigation. The 4,376-pound is suspended on electronically controlled air springs and power comes from a 385 horsepower version of the 4.6-liter Tau V8 already seeing duty in the Genesis. The only thing the Equus lacks compared to a Lexus or Benz is an oversized sticker price. Hyundai says the Equus will be priced in the mid $50,000 range when it goes on sale later this year. You can check out the full press release (including a by-the-numbers comparison of how the Equus stacks up against its main rivals) after the jump, or check out the high-res gallery below (we'll have live shots from Javitz shortly).

The big surprise during the Hyundai Equus reveal today at today's New York Auto Show was the automaker's announcement that it would supply each new Equus owner with a "multimedia tablet" to replace the owner's manual. While Hyundai USA president John Krafcik didn't explicitly say that the device in question will be an Apple iPad, the image presented above unquestionably the company's latest gadget. Of course, there's no guarantee that the Hyundai tablet will actually be an Apple product by the time the Equus hits dealers this fall.

The idea behind the tablet is to not only replace the traditional owner's manual – a costly book that's grown increasingly more difficult to navigate with the exponential increase in features, particularly in luxury vehicles – but to handle customer/dealer interactions like scheduling service appointments.

Although the iPad (hitting retailers and pre-orderers' mailboxes this Saturday) is the biggest player in the yet-to-be-tested tablet segment, there are several other manufacturers building slate-like devices for consumers. Dell, JooJoo and others have their own units in the works, but Apple is easily the stand-out... for now.