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PARIS MOTOR SHOW: Turbo engine for Kia pro_cee'd?
Hints aplenty that Kia will build a direct-injected, turbocharged hot hatch from three-door pro_cee'dNo less a person than Benny Oeyen, Vice President Marketing and Product Planning for Kia in Europe, 'pipe-dreamed' during his introduction of the new pro_cee'd in Paris that a high-performance engine for the three-door hatch would be a good thing.
Mr Oeyen didn't admit that the company was actively developing such a car, but the implication was quite clear – crystal, in fact.
Kia's National Public Relations Manager in Australia, Kevin Hepworth, had previously told motoring.com.au that the company would not follow in the footsteps of the parent, Hyundai, establishing a performance sub-brand. But he left the way open for speculation Kia might bring in a sporty variant of the cee'd small car currently not sold in Australia.
Then, pumping high-octane fuel on the fire came remarks from Doctor Joachim Hahn, head of powertrain engineering, design and testing at Kia's European Technical Centre. Doctor Hahn was adamant in discussion with Aussie journalists the day the Paris show opened that the turbocharged Gamma 1.6-litre engine that powers Hyundai's Veloster Turbo was not slated for the Rio three-door, specifically. But, there's a but....
"Actually I didn't say that it was for the Rio..." he corrected one journalist. "Yes, to answer honestly, we have a Gamma 1.6 Turbo GDI engine developed; it is within the group already in production. And if you think that the new pro_cee'd, from its shape, is ready for more performance, I can agree."
Just as Mr Hepworth did, Doctor Hahn also poured cold water on a performance-based sub-brand for Kia. To Doctor Hahn it seems, such a sub-brand would be something more along the lines of AMG and its relationship to Mercedes-Benz.
"I am not that much involved in marketing, but also from my standpoint I would not call this a sub-brand," he said, "because we are not talking about some extra-ordinary vehicle for only a very few people – for only a niche application. We are talking about a kind of sports version... nothing that cannot be used for [the] usual driver or his family."
With the turbo engine in the Veloster gaining rave reviews, it's the obvious choice for the pro_cee'd, but Doctor Hahn left some wriggle room for Kia to develop a variant that's just a bit wilder still. Kia's development of the turbo engine is not exactly the same as Hyundai's, as Doctor Hahn admits.
"Hardware-wise it is nearly the same. Currently I can't talk about the concrete application, but as you can imagine it is more or less easy; it is only a kind of development effort to tune a turbocharged engine, which means that for the engine already on sale in the group we communicated something that we can do to adapt an engine perfectly to different markets. Which means for example Gamma 1.6 Turbo GDI does not necessarily mean that all the engines necessarily have the same turbocharger. We have some freedom to play around with the size of the compressor... we can play around with the timing, which also has a big influence on the peak performance versus the low-end torque.
"But to make it also as clear as I can do it today, of course the intention is to have a new vehicle – if we do a sports car – we want to have a certain differentiation from the existing top engine models so far, which also should be reflected in the power."
The Kia drivetrain boss acknowledged that in some markets the turbo engine would need at least the option of being coupled to Hyundai/Kia's dual-clutch transmission, but the present unit, developed in-house, cannot handle the torque potential of the turbo engine.
"Currently we combine this dual-clutch transmission to our 1.6 GDI engine with 135 or in other applications 140 horsepower. Our wish – that is also a look into the future – is also to have a dual-clutch transmission to be combined with turbocharged gasoline engines and diesel engines. The demand for that is to have in the end a dual-clutch transmission, which is able to transform 350Nm, which the current application is not able to do."
And what of the car itself? Will Kia go hog-wild building a pro_cee'd Turbo that looks as distinctive from the rest of the range in much the same way that Subaru's WRX or STi contrasts with lesser Impreza variants? Perhaps not, if the view of Kia's Chief Design Officer, Peter Schreyer, is anything to go by.
"I think the important thing is not to make it more aggressive, [but] to give it more performance," Mr Schreyer explained. "I think it's already pretty sporty looking... but the way's not to make [it] really wild – big spoilers and everything on it – and then say: 'What engine's it going to get?' It's got to be the other way around; you've got to put a decent engine in it and then say: 'Okay, this is what it's going to look like'."
And the Kia designer when asked whether a hot hatch variant was a guiding thought during the design of the pro_ceed answered simply: "Yeah, certainly..."
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Written byKen Gratton
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If the price does not contain the notation that it is "Drive Away", the price may not include additional costs, such as stamp duty and other government charges.
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