We know now that Hyundai has its eyes squarely on the prize of snatching premium-badge sales from BMW and Audi, and will later this year launch its new Genesis luxury car brand in Europe to begin doing so. It's an ambitious strategy, especially given the time and investment needed for, say, Lexus to start making an significant inroads into the European market, but Hyundai's sister brand Kia may just have gone one better in the ambition stakes - it wants to take on, specifically, the BMW 3 Series.
Plans are afoot within Kia for a new sporty compact saloon, potentially using a cut-down version of the rear-wheel-drive platform developed for Genesis’ products. Such a move would help to spread development costs, but the plans do fly somewhat in the face of conventional wisdom that what you need to appeal to a youthful car market is an SUV.
Not so, according to Kia, or at least not quite. Dave Sullivan, analysis manager at consultancy AutoPacific, explained "Kia hit a home run with the Soul - they figured out how to keep it fresh and fun. Apply this formula to a rear-wheel drive sedan and they might be able to go after a younger consumer who is bored with the played-out BMW 3-Series, but wants to move out of their Soul they have had since college."
Played out? The 3 Series? Really? Well, there’s no question that the 3’s greatest enemy is its own success, and that the ever-increasing numbers of mid-size BMWs on the streets reduces the cachet and premium nature of the car at every turn. With a mid-size premium market bursting with high-quality competition (Audi A4, Mercedes C-Class, Jaguar XE, Lexus IS, Infiniti Q60) clearly Kia is not going to be facing an open goal here, but the styling of its Novo concept seems to show that it has the chutzpah on the looks front, and if the dynamics and engines can be made to match what BMW can do, then perhaps there’s an opening.
We've known for a while that Kia has plans to create more overtly sporting models (the 190hp Cee'd GT is just a toe in the water, really) and the Hyundai-Kia group recently poached the former head of engineering for BMW's own M-Division, Albert Biermann, to head up development of high-performance and luxury models.
Rumour has it that this new, sporty Kia saloon will go into production in May 2017, with 2.0, 2.2 and 3.0-litre engines available, depending on the market.
