What’s Missing from the Kia Lineup?

When you look up and down the Kia lineup it seems like everything is neatly in place. Starting at the bottom with the Rio which is a small hatchback style car that makes for a great youthful purchase and the Kia Forte that is a bit larger and also sporty in its performance and appearance. Moving up to the next rung on the ladder you have the Cadenza and Optima which are both fantastic midsized players to go along with the fun and funky Soul which is certainly one of the favorites from Kia.

Of course you can’t forget the fact that Kia tries to have a luxury sedan in the form of the K900, which really is a wonderful luxury vehicle for anyone to choose, but it seems to get passed over just for the name. Finally there are three SUVs that make up the final touches of the Kia lineup which are the Sportage, Sedona and Sorento. No doubt Kia has grown from being the bottom of the affordable vehicle brands to be a brand that we love and want to drive on a regular basis, but there still seems to be something missing.

The missing element for Kia is an actual sports car, but Kia is working hard to fill the void. The new sports car that has been put out as a concept so far is codenamed the CK and is expected to begin production as early as May of 2017. It seems Kia feels this sports car will sell extremely well right out of the gate as they already project a sales of 60,000 annually to start off with this awesome new sports car. Let’s take a look at what the CK is expected to offer for the driving excitement we want.

This is to be a four door sports sedan that will likely play in the same luxury class as the BMW 4-Series. The expected engines include a 2.0, 2.2 and 3.0-liter models with the last one being a V6 engine. This car will be smaller than the Hyundai Genesis Coupe and will carry the same RWD setup that is present on the K900. Because we have already been presented with sports car concepts in the form of the GT4 Stinger and Novo it’s easy to see where Kia is going with this car and it will be a welcome addition to the market, filling the empty hole in the lineup.

While Kia and Hyundai are joined at the hip, we see Genesis coming from Hyundai which positions itself as more of a luxury brand, leaving Kia the opportunity to be the sportier brand. Rumors are swirling that Hyundai may be working on their own sports car line as well, which makes pushing the CK to market even faster that much more important. As you can plainly see the fact that Kia didn’t go after the market the Mustang and Camaro compete in, but instead went for the BMW 4-Series and Audi A5 area they are looking to be a serious sports luxury brand and the new CK is a foot in the door.