Kia today took the wraps off the updated K9 flagship luxury sedan in Korea. If it looks familiar, and we don’t mean those very Volvo ‘Thor’-like headlamp signatures, that’s because the K9 is the facelift of the car we’ve come to know as the K900 flagship luxury sedan in the USA and Canada.
First introduced in 2018, the Korean
carmakers says it designed the updated K9 to be more “luxurious” and
“sophisticated” than the outgoing model. That translates into a new and wider
grille, with V-shaped chrome inserts, slim headlights, and a large bumper up
front. Kia is also using a reworked character line to make the car look larger,
19-inch wheels to make it look more luxurious, and a new taillight line that
runs along the width of the rear that’s supposed to portray its tech prowess,
but that’s marketing talk.
Although the new look changes things up
for the model, it’s a much more restrained update than what the Kia K8 got, for
instance. Unfortunately, the vehicle’s interior has not been revealed yet. With
the exterior’s premium update, though, we would anticipate that the interior
will get finer materials, plush seats, and perhaps an update to the
infotainment system.
Similarly, Kia has not yet announced
detailed specs for the updated car’s powertrain. The outgoing model, though,
offers both rear- and all-wheel-drive configurations as well as a variety of
engines. The range tops out with a 5.0-liter V8 that makes 419 hp. A selection
of V6s, meanwhile, make between 250 hp and 311 hp.
Until recently, the K9 was offered in the
US with the V8 engine and called the K900. In January, the brand announced that
it would be dropping the model along with the Cadenza (now known as the K8) in
North America.
