South Korea Is Done With Slow: Kia Wants to Make Some Serious Sports Cars

8 years, 11 months ago - 27 January 2016, Carbuzz

Kia has been hard at work on reinventing its image and it all started back in 2011 with the GT Concept. Now the GT sports car is rumored to reach production in 2017 and will apparently be revealed at the Paris Motor Show later this year.

While the launch of a new sports car is exciting news, there's more in the performance pipes. Kia reportedly wants a lineup of performance vehicles that will include a Ford Fiesta ST fighter. As long as Kia doesn’t mess up its GT sports car, the rest of its new models will follow suit.

After the GT sports car comes out, Kia plans on making performance variants of the Procee’d and Optima (both GT-badged). However, according to a report from Autocar, the automaker will focus on first building a Rio GT for 2018. The Rio GT will be developed under the watchful eye of ex-BMW M boss Albert Biermann and is seen as crucial to establishing the reputation of the GT brand. Technical details for the Rio GT are still under wraps, but the hot hatch is expected to get a tuned 1.6-liter engine that makes around 180 horsepower. The order seems to go GT sports car, Rio GT and then everything else. Hyundai just upped its performance game with N and now Kia seems set to follow that path. More fast cars are never a bad thing, right?