2018 KIA GT - Rear wheel drive

Wow that car came out far better than I imagined. Amazing vehicle and kudos to Kia for pulling it off!

Nice G8.

wildcatgoal said:

Nice G8.

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I don't see G8 in that, and I owned one for almost 5 years.

I see more Audi A7/S7 in that car than anything. Maybe 4 series coupe as well.

That is awesome.

It looks really good from certain angles. The Koreans are moving up!

No manual transmission, though. :tsk:

Zodiac said:

I don't see G8 in that, and I owned one for almost 5 years.

I see more Audi A7/S7 in that car than anything. Maybe 4 series coupe as well.

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It's designed by Peter Schreyer who use to be the head design lead at Audi before Kia got him in 2008 which lead to their great looking cars now.

So yes, definitely A7/S7 and some A5/S5 sportback in it for sure.

Looks like i'm the minority, i don't find it to be bad looking, but i'm also not really enamored with it.

I mean... I'd drive it if it wasn't exceptionally expensive. Which it will be.

wildcatgoal said:

I mean... I'd drive it if it wasn't exceptionally expensive. Which it will be.

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They are saying within the 45K range...waaaaay under the price of a BMW or Audi that it's meant to compete with.

At the end of the day it's still a Kia. BMW and Audi buyers are not going to cross shop a Kia. I have said it before but if Kia wants to be taken seriously, they are going to need to completely rebrand themselves.

Marino said:

At the end of the day it's still a Kia. BMW and Audi buyers are not going to cross shop a Kia. I have said it before but if Kia wants to be taken seriously, they are going to need to completely rebrand themselves.

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You'll never get those buyers anyway...they only think about a label. They are going for the value conscience consumer which is a waaaay bigger market piece...and they are slowly getting there..especially in quality/dependability/design.

I like.

Cool name too, instead of some alphanumeric gobbledegook.

Spartan said:

They are saying within the 45K range...waaaaay under the price of a BMW or Audi that it's meant to compete with.

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I don't know about "waaaaay" under. My wife's 340i, though optioned to msrp of $60,800, carries a base price of $47,900. The 440i gran coupe, which this Kia is designed to compete with, starts just a tick higher at $48,300. And for that, you get German quality, BMW refinement, and sub 5 sec 0-60 and 1/4 in 12s.

Whether you are loyal to german sedans or not, $45K seems like a lot to pay for a Kia. Their quality is improving drastically, but their public perception isn't following the same pace.

This whole thing is not so different from when Hyundai did the same thing with the Genesis. If history is any indication it was successful enough that Genesis became hyundai's luxury brand.

At the end of the day the Korean car companies have to position themselves as a quality option at least on par with American and Japanese because if your only sales strategy is to be the cheapest you will be in trouble when Chinese cars start hitting US soil