Kia: Enough teasing, sports car will be here by 2020

Kia has announced its well-received GT and Stinger GT4 concept will both inspire an affordable sports car in the not-too-distant future.

Speaking to British car magazine, Autocar, Kia’s UK boss Paul Philpott was reluctant to give details but confirmed that the new sports car would be “affordable” and be its own model, rather than being based on another Kia product.

This has led to speculation that the new affordable could follow in the tyre tracks of the Toyota/Subaru template by being be a reasonably powerful, rear-wheel drive coupe with striking styling.

Philpott also added that such a sports car would need to be sold worldwide for it to be viable.

This means the US market will feature heavily in its gestation and the new sport car is expected to be penned at Kia’s Californian design studio.

Speaking to Autocar, the British CEO said that as well as an all-new sports car, a Nissan JUKE-rivalling small SUV from Kia is also in the pipeline and would be on sale “within two years”.

“We’ll do it right and be a force to be reckoned with,” said Philpott talking about Kia’s new small crossover.

Finally, Pilpott also confirmed the all-new, next-generation Picanto city-car will arrive sometime in 2017.

While Kia hopes to release the existing Picanto in Australia this year, it most recently told us -- at the Geneva motor show in March -- that production versions of its GT, GT4 Stinger and Niro compact SUV would all eventually be released.