Kia's first hot hatch confirmed for Oz

It's official: Kia's sportiest production car ever will come Down Under.

Due to be unveiled at the Geneva motor show on Tuesday but already outed in all but the finest of details, the three-door coupe-cum-hatch will definitely be added to Kia's local line-up... Only Kia Australia won't say when.

It will confirm Australia will be "the first, and currently only, market outside Europe" to take turbocharged three-door.

“This is a whole new level of performance for Kia Australia," Kia Motors Australia boss Tony Barlow said.

An Aussie airing for the turbocharged pro_cee'd GT was first mooted late last year but Kia would not confirm the car's fate. Now in its second generation, pro_cee'd has to date only been sold in Europe. The car is built in Kia's Zilina factory in Slovakia.

Though no Australian release date has been announced, the pro_cee'd GT (and its hatch counterpart, the cee'd GT) goes on sale in Europe in the middle of this year.

"It is too early to give a firm [Australian] arrival date," Mr Barlow stated.

“We currently have no indication of when our production may be available... For the moment it is exciting enough to know we will get the car,” he stated.

The pro_ceed GT is powered by the same 150kW/265Nm 1.6-litre direct-injected and turbocharged DOHC four that features in Hyundai's Veloster turbo.

Mr Barlow stated locally delivered pro_cee'd GTs would undergo "full ride and handling localisation".

Kia claims a 0-100km/h sprint time of 7.7 seconds and a top speed of 230km/h for the six-speed manual version. It's not clear whether Kia is also offer a twin-clutch auto variant here.

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