Kia planning rival to Audi A5 12 | 07 | 2011

KIA IS PLANNING to launch a new coupe-style concept at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. The newcomer, which is believed to follow the lines of the Audi A5, will be the first of a series of “image” car concepts at forthcoming major shows, understood to include Detroit and Geneva 2012.

The new "image concepts" will include a rear-drive coupe along the lines of the Hyundai’s Genesis, a small front-drive roadster, based on Cee’d mechanicals, and a drop-top version of the Soul.

Kia's current range of saloons, hatchbacks and SUVs have doubled over the past four years to around 2.5 million units.

“We have made good progress recently,” Kia’s vice chairman and CEO, Hank Lee explained, “but it is now important for us to improve our brand power. Concepts like these will help a lot with that. But we are prepared to take our time. We will test plenty of ideas before we make any decisions about production.”

And his views were supported by Kia’s European boss, Paul Philpott, who admitted the logical time for Kia to launch some high-image cars would be in 2013, by which time all its mainstream cars will have been renewed.

“We could do with a new Kia product to do the job of the Mazda MX-5,” he says, and "2013-2014 would be the ideal time to do it. But our factories in Europe, China, America and Korea are already at full stretch. The big challenge will be finding the extra production capacity we’ll need."

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Craig James