Picture this: the year is 2030 and the SEMA show opens its gates to reveal that one of the driving forces behind the event is a mind-bending range of radical Kia projects. Sure, the South Korean automaker, along with its Hyundai sibling, has been taking on the Vegas venue for years, but that’s a different story compared to the fiction mentioned above. Of course, for such dreams to come true, these Asian machines would have to be dialed up to eleven, which is precisely what happens to the K5 showcased in this rendering.
This pumped-up Kia aims for no less than a shot at the master of the performance sedan segment, the Dodge Challenger (Hellcat).
“You and what army?”, we hear the Mopar machine asking. After all, this is a four-door that has managed to win multiple duels with GM competitors, for instance—many people don’t even know what the Chevrolet SS was and the Cadillac Vs simply aren’t as cool, at least by our standards.
Well, the Korean vehicle comes with a monstrous widebody whose vented flares remind us of the kind of flamboyant 80s styling paraded in Miami Vice.
However, that’s just a distraction, with the main attraction taking place under the electric blue skin of the Kia. This K5 has lost its 2.5L turbo-four and its FWD and no, it doesn’t rely on a turbocharged six-cylinder engine like its Stinger big brother—like the Stinger, it comes in RWD form, but, as the transparent hood allows us to notice, there’s some supercharged V8 muscle in there.
Now, what is the motivation for coming up with this sort of contraption? It seems that digital artist Timothy Adry Emmanuel (aka adry53customs), whose captivating work usually revolves around American car culture, has a prediction to make. And we’re not referring to the NFS Underground 3 dream showcased in the one of the images below (many of us hope Electronic Arts will give the memorable Underground 2 a successor, but we digress).
“Korean Domestic Market is the next JDM *several jdm fans are typing…,” the caption of the Instagram post depicting the rendering reads.
Of course, this sort of idea will split opinions, but a simple glance at the sales figures (remember when Hyundai-Kia became the world’s fourth-largest carmaker back in 2009?) shows just how quickly these brands are moving.
