According to South Korean sources, and looking to a many spy shots we found on the latest months, we thought that an improved Kia K9 was on the works. Now we have the confirmation that Kia Motors will release a revamped version of its flagship K9 sedan next month.
[ads id=”0″ style=”float:left;padding:9px;”]Kia said on Sunday that the interior and exterior were newly modified with more upscale touches in a bid to compete with other luxury sedans such as Hyundai’s Equus, Mercedes-Benz’s S-Class, and BMW’s 7 Series.
Considering the sluggish sales of the pricier K9 luxury sedan at South Korean local market, this facelift could help the model and Kia to recovery local market share.
Waiting for the refreshed K9 and the next-generation Optima-K5, Kia local sales are holding thanks to its Carnival minivan and latest modified Sorento SUV sales (both cars are selling rapidly), preventing a bigger drop in the total figures. Kia’s market share has recovered from 25.4 percent in June to 30.1 percent in September.
So where exactly are these “many spy shots”? I search for KIA news every day, looking to finding new Optima spy shot that hopefully don’t look like the hideous render you posted a few weeks back. I have seen exactly zero K900 spy shots.
Well, I saw some spy pictures on korean forums, and also Erick was in South Korea past month and spotted several K9 cars completely under camouflage, but he was on Hyundai’s Global Club Invitation and was forbidden to take pictures.
hideous rendering by a student. Still cannot understand how The Korean Car Blog used that amateur rendering which has zero credibility….
I stumbled upon this on a Korean blog the other day: http://i.imgur.com/gGrnLV3.jpg
Quite similar to that render, which is very very worrying. I honestly hope the final design is nothing like this. I love the Wrap-around grill/headlight of new Sorento and Sedona. I also quite like the Ceed/Cadenza/K900 style of tiger grill. This old grill has to go. It looks very outdated and it won’t make sense having three different styles. I own a Ceed and am looking to upgrade next year to either the new Optima or Sportage. If they keep the old fashioned grill, I’m going to have sadly say goodbye to KIA and buy an IX35 or perhaps a bigger Santa Fe.
As I said in my comment about the KCB render, with the old grill, it looks like a rip-off of a 5 y/o Japanese car.