We?ve been looking forward to the Kia GT for some time; this illustration was featured among our 25 Cars Worth Waiting For this year and a compact rear-drive sports sedan is exactly the sort of brand-building that we like most.
We showed spy shots of the car testing back in May, and now some of Kia?s senior executives in Korea have revealed a few more details. The production car will stick closely to the formula suggested by the original concept seen at the 2011 Frankfurt auto show, with a rear-drive chassis and low, coupe-like styling. ?There?s no point producing a rear-wheel drive car unless you are going to take advantage of the benefits the layout brings,” Albert Biermann, Hyundai-Kia?s head of performance development told us when we cornered him at the recent opening of a new test track at the company?s proving ground in Korea. The base engine will be a turbocharged four-cylinder, confirming a hint dropped by the GT4 Stinger shown at the Detroit auto show back in 2014 (photo below), although we don?t know if it will get anywhere close to the 315-hp output claimed for that concept car. Biermann confirmed that there will be a European-focused diesel variant, saying he has recently driven this around the Nurburgring Nordschlieffe. He made it sound as if this won?t be the 48V electrically boosted hybrid that was under development, which Biermann now suggests is unlikely to make production. Instead, expect  a conventional turbodiesel, most likely the 197-hp 2.2-liter...