Kia GT at Frankfurt: It WILL go in to production

Kia GT at Frankfurt - will be going in to production

Kia has unveiled the very impressive Kia GT concept at Frankfurt and revealed it will go in to production in 2013.

We’ve been hugely impressed with the way Kia – and sister company Hyundai – has transformed in to a serious player in the car market. And now, having matched the Japanese in the mainstream market Kia, in particular, is looking to take things up a rung or three with the Kia GT.

We praised the styling of the Kia GT when we saw the first photo, but we believed it was likely just a design exercise; a sort of ‘Look what we could do if there was a market for it’ kind of statement.

But it turns out that the Kia GT isn’t just a design exercise but is heading for production – probably in 2013. Which we are very much in favour of; Kia now has enough credibility to carry-off an upmarket, powerful swoopy coupe and be taken seriously.

The surprise with the Kia GT is that it comes with a 3.3 litre turbo V6 rather than the 425bhp V8 from the Hyundai Genesis R-Spec as we expected. But it still means there’ll be 390bhp on tap and 394lb/ft of torque fed to the rear wheels through an eight-speed auto ‘box.

The news that Kia are going ahead with production of the GT is a signal that they’re ready to move on to the next stage – performance halo models across the range; something we’ve said we hope Hyundai will do with the new i30.

That will mean we’ll be getting a Cee’d GTI before too long and probably performance versions across the rest of the Kia range too. Other plans for Kia include a convertible Soul and a new roadster based on cee’d underpinnings.

European car makers beware.