Kia’s long-awaited fastback sedan is inching closer to making its world debut at the 2016 Detroit Auto Show. For its part, the Korean automaker is making sure that there’s an appropriate buzz surrounding the model that’s supposedly carrying the “GT” name. While the name is still a mystery, the anticipation isn’t and Kia isn’t about to let that buzz die down. The company even created a dedicated website – http://ift.tt/2gXzGaW – for the specific model, complete with a massive countdown timer, a short yet revealing film series, and a photo gallery that’s, well, "coming soon."
At this point, the only thing we know is that the debut will be for the performance fastback that Kia’s releasing to compete against some of Germany’s finest performance sedans, including the Mercedes CLS and the Audi A7. Everything else though is still shrouded in mystery, which I expect is what Kia wants to happen as it slowly starts teasing the car ahead of its highly anticipated debut in January at Detroit.
Speaking of teasing, the aforementioned teaser series on The Curved Ahead site did point to something revealing about the car. Apparently, at least one variant of the model can do 244 kmh on the Nürburgring, which converts to about 151 mph. While that’s not exactly reason to start salivating about the performance possibilities of the model, a separate teaser image of the second teaser episode – there are a lot of teasers on this website! – shows a speedometer’s needle pointing just north of 280 kmh, or 174 mph. That’s where the intrigue really kicks in because it could be Kia’s subtle way of telling us that this fastback model will have different engines under its hood.
Given the market that it’s expected to enter, it certainly wouldn’t be surprising if the model gets a tuned version of the 3.3-liter V-6 engine that’s currently being used by Hyundai’s Genesis models. Those engines are currently rated as high as 365 horsepower and 376 pound-feet of torque, or maybe they could go even higher if those needles are going to push close to 300 kmh, or 186 miles.
That’s one of the many mysteries we’re dealing with regarding Kia’s upcoming performance fastback. Oh, and about it’s name? It could be GT, Stinger, or maybe even an amalgam of the two. Add that to the number of questions we have about this model.
Continue after the jump to read the full story.
from Top Speed http://ift.tt/2gj78V0
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