Kia Australia eyeballing Cerato 'GT'
Five-door sports hatch on local arm's wishlist as Pro_cee'd GT replacementKia Australia is looking at a five-door replacement for its axed Pro_cee'd GT coupe – an as yet unconfirmed GT version of the Cerato.
Despite being one of the better-performing 'warm' hatches available for under $30,000 in Australia, the three-door, manual-only Kia Pro_cee'd GT failed to find a strong market and was dropped from the range late in 2015.
Now, the local arm is keen to return a sporty Kia to the Australian model line-up.
"The problem with Pro_cee'd GT was that it was manual-only," says Kia Motors Australia General Manager Media and Corporate Communications, Kevin Hepworth.
"The ideal would have been to have the Pro_cee'd GT with its Australian suspension tune [which was so well-received it is now used in Euro-spec variants], independent rear suspension [IRS], the turbo 1.6 and the seven-speed dual-clutch 'auto'," he continued, adding that sales would have been "at least 50 per cent" greater with the two-pedal option.
"With only three doors, there was also a practical issue to consider."
Nevertheless the brand sees value in having a performance-angled vehicle in the Australian market.
"If there's a turbo 1.6 version of the next-generation Cerato five-door hatch [as opposed to the facelifted current-gen Cerato that will arrive locally in May], we'd be interested in that as a product consideration," said Hepworth, adding that no formal business plan has been set.
"There's also the five-door cee'd which is currently available and has the seven-speed [DCT]," he continued.
The latter gives more specific tuning capability with its IRS, but there are other considerations such as cost and delivery time in bringing the Slovakian-produced cee'd compared to the Korean-built Cerato.
"The supply line can take up to three months from Europe, shipping a car from Slovakia to Sydney," says Hepworth.
"It is more time consuming and expensive. Out of Korea, that can be six weeks."
Hyundai is believed to have grafted a high-spec IRS system on versions of the new Elantra. This is in preparation for higher performance versions as the model range expands.
A high-performance Cerato 'GT' could follow the same evolutionary path... And deliver Kia a new performance halo.
– With staff
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