Kia K9 (aka dog)

Kia has launched the first official pictures of its new flagship machine.

In Korea it will be called the K9, the family of animal that the dog belongs to. I wonder if this has any hidden meaning of how it'll handle. I would hope not but even so it's likely to take on a different name for overseas launch i.e. it'll have a different name here.

So what interesting tid bits of information can I give you? Well for starters it is the first rear wheel drive sedan that the company has ever launched. In terms of size you can expect something that rivals the BMW 7-Series and the Mercedes S Class. The only information on engines so far is that it'll likely use a large capacity V8. This doesn't seem too concrete however so don't hold me to that.

The K9 is the also going to show the styling changes that will make up most Kia's in the future. What does this mean? Well let me run you through a few of the details. It will feature a family look 'tiger nose'. I think it looks nothing like a tiger. What the nose includes is a grille arrangement coupled with the LED headlights. You will also see LED combo lights at the rear of the car (like every executive machine these days) with some super special, all powerful, chrome look. What I will say is that although it doesn't look anything like a tiger nose the car looks good anyway.

So what about costs? I don't know, sorry. Kia hasn't said that the thing will definitely be coming to the UK so that's the reason for the no cost detail. Even so I doubt there would be much point in releasing it here and this is the meat of what I wanted to talk about. British people are very snobby and buy into brand kudos which means that if they were posed with the option of buying a premium saloon car they would undoubtedly go for a BMW, Mercedes or even an Audi. Cars that are established and have some street cred. The new K9 is just that, new, unestablished and as a result not an option.

You might confuse me for saying that it'll be terrible when I say these things but that isn't the case. In fact I'm sure that if it costs around £40,000 you'll see it sell rather strongly. I don't think it will be released here however and personally I reckon that's a shame.

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you'll continue to come to me for top class automotive news.