Kia set to take sporting chance

Kia Cabrio. Photo / Supplied

There have been plenty of hints in recent times that Kia Motors may be looking to build a sports car to give the Korean brand an image boost.

And it shouldn't come as a surprise, as Kia built the Elan for a while in the 1990s after it bought the rights from Lotus.

But in the past few months Kia has hinted it intends to build a sporty "halo" model for the brand, with the recent unveiling of the rear-wheel-drive GT 4-door coupe concept vehicle.

Kia Motors' vice-chairman Hyoun-Keun Lee said the coupe was the first of a series of show cars to test the water.

A small, affordable sports car may also be in its sights, and chief design officer and former Audi man Peter Schreyer has made no secret of his desire for the firm to build one.

He was recently quoted in Britain as saying that if Kia built a roadster, it would have to be rear-wheel-drive and also have a canvas roof.

"For me, a roadster doesn't have a folding metal roof that whizzes around your head. It has to be canvas," Schreyer said.

He only needs to wander through the Kia Motors museum at the R&D centre at Namyang, Korea, to get inspiration for such a car.

A bright red Kia Elan takes pride of place among the displays of past Kia models, among the few remaining examples of the British-designed sports car the company was licensed to build under its own brand in 1995 to sell in the Korean domestic market.

In place of the Lotus-Ford twin-cam 1558cc engine and later 1.6-litre Isuzu motor that were in the British-built Lotus, the Kia Elan was powered by its own "Hi-Sprint" 113kW, 1.8-litre, 16-valve, twin-cam engine and five-speed gearbox.

Kia has flirted with several soft-top sports car designs in recent times. These include the Kia KCV-3 Sport concept from the middle of last decade, the more recent Kia Cabrio concept, based on the European-only Kia c'eed hatchback, and the Kia Soulster, based on the Kia Soul CUV.