Kia Goes All in on the GT Sports Sedan Hype

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

We’ve got a pretty clear picture of what the upcoming Kia GT sports sedan will look like (thanks to this pretty clear picture of a pre-production model), but Kia wants us to look inside.

In advance of the model’s unveiling, the Korean automaker hopes to boost cardiac BPMs by releasing a high-RPM video of the model on Germany’s famed Nürburgring.

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Indi500fan Indi500fan on Dec 01, 2016

    With some reasonable reliability and potentially lousy resale baked into the pie, we could have some nicely priced rwd sports sedans in the future

  • Kendahl Kendahl on Dec 01, 2016

    Some people buy the brand name to impress their neighbors. They won't even notice this car because Kia isn't a prestigious name. Some people (enthusiasts) buy a car for the way it drives and don't care whether it impresses anyone else. Kia might have something here for the latter. We won't know until a few competent drivers wring it out and write about the experience.

  • Chan Chan on Dec 01, 2016

    I hope Kia is planning to emulate or improve on the Genesis sales/service model, because owners of $60k cars do not want to buy and service their cars at anything like the current state of Hyundai/Kia dealers.

    • See 3 previous
    • Chan Chan on Dec 02, 2016

      @APaGttH Don't get me wrong--H/K make decent cars now and I'm glad that there are reputable dealers. All the H/K dealers I've been to in CA made me want to vomit my brains out. The facilities were old and tired, yes, but the biggest problem lay, err...elsewhere.

  • Rust-MyEnemy Rust-MyEnemy on Dec 02, 2016

    When I think of Kia and Hyundai vs BMW and Audi, I think of Samsung vs Apple in the smartphone market. Samsung, a Korean firm with distinctly non-premium history of microwave ovens and lo-cost televisions has morphed into a company whose cutting edge smartphones are as credible as those from Apple. The iPhone was always pitched as a premium product, the Samsung Galaxy series was just pitched as an extremely competent one. The fact that the two now compete for the same buyers shows that competence genuinely does sell. An aspirational image still seems key to success in the sports sedan market, with actual ability below it in the pecking order. Lacking such an image, any Kia eqivalent to a 340i will need to be spectacularly capable to gain market traction, and even then will be handicapped by depreciation, so it won't finance as well as a BMW. Right now, if the product is as strong as it's said to be - and the current European line of Kia offerings is close to parity with the best - Kia needs to be very careful in its marketing to avoid being weighed down with baggage from its unpromising early days. If Yugo created a world-beating supercar, you'd think they'd change the name. I have little doubt that Korean cars will directly rival European models for competence and standard of design and finish within the next few years. All they need to do now is become desirable.

    • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on Dec 02, 2016

      "Samsung, a Korean firm with distinctly non-premium history of microwave ovens and lo-cost televisions" And construction, banking, cars, industrial implements. They're much more than you'd think. Much further reaching than Apple.

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