The focus in Kia’s sedan lineup recently has been mostly on the Stinger. When it comes to more upscale offerings, Genesis has been arguably taking the lion’s share of attention. But Kia’s working on a new flagship luxury sedan of its own, and this is our first official glimpse at its form.
The new K900 promises to embody a more “sophisticated exterior design,” stemming from the joint efforts of Kia’s designers in the United States and back home in South Korea.
It also proposes a more accommodating and upscale interior, along with the latest safety technologies, and “effortless performance” to “give the driver greater confidence at the wheel.” If reviews of the aforementioned Stinger give any indication, it seems that Kia has the chops to back up that claim.
Sold in Korea as the K9 and elsewhere as the Quoris, the sedan that North American customers know as the K900 was introduced in 2012. It’s based on the same platform as the previous Hyundai Genesis and Equus sedans, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see the new K900 adopting the revised architecture that underpins the new Genesis sedans – and Kia’s own Stinger.
No word on powertrains just yet, but we’d fully expect the options to revolve around the same Lambda V6 and Tau V8 as the current K900 and Genesis G80 and G90.
In the same brief statement, the automaker says the new sedan will “debut later in the year,” but that it will reach showrooms “from the second quarter of 2018”(which would be mean in the next few months). So we’re not sure whether we’ll see it in Geneva next month – word has it New York a month later is the target – but we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled.
