Kia Wants To Build A Sports Sedan For The 'Gamer Generation,' Whatever The Hell That Means

Kia's Vision Meta Turismo concept is one cool-ass sedan, meant to actually go into production and take the place of the much-loved and little-appreciated Stinger GT once the economics make a bit more sense. Believe it or not, now is not the best time to start selling a big, powerful, expensive electric sedan.

The futuristic sedan, which was revealed in Korea last year to market the brand's 80th birthday, is apparently a Stinger GT for the "gamer generation," design boss Karim Habib told Autocar. I've got no idea what that means. In all likelihood, it's a play on how the car is meant to appeal to young people, but I'd rather muse about it's actually a car aimed at people with Cheeto-dust fingers, Mountain Dew blood and a penchant for calling their mom "that b*tch.

No matter what form a Stinger successor took — gamer or not — it would be incredibly welcome. I mean, Kia currently sells 12 (including the upcoming EV3) different vehicles, and just two of them are sedans. While the K4 and K5 are very good commuter cars, they're not really in the same league as the mighty Stinger. Maybe that successor is finally coming.

Habib told Autocar that Kia wants to explore vehicle segments beyond SUVs. After all, Kia sells seven different crossover/SUVs right now, so the market is pretty well saturated. But, do y'all know what isn't an SUV? A sports sedan, and Habib says a fastback version of the Vision Meta Turismo is something like "90% production ready." While nothing is set in stone, he's making it sound like there's a real chance it could go into production at some point.

The only thing holding Kia back, right now, is a very clear lack of demand from the market.

"At this point, it is more strategic. It's a pure EV and the price of doing a high-performance EV is what is slowing us down. Hopefully, the upward movement of EVs keeps going. I think there will be more openness to this [type of] car," Habib told Autocar. "At least that's what we're betting on."

Another thing Kia is betting on, according to Autocar, is that younger buyers aren't as interested in gas-powered vehicles as older generations are.

We're car people. We grew up on the side of a race track hearing V8s, but those are not the things that the younger generation cares as much about. It actually doesn't trigger them. It triggered us, but we're living in a different age, so understanding what triggers the younger generation and gets them emotionally tied in and emotionally interested, that's important," Interior design boss Jochen Paesen said.

He added that young people also don't care much for EVs with fake engine noises, and I can't tell you if that's true or not, but I can tell you that it doesn't really matter. You see, the "gamer generation" doesn't have any money, honey. While it would be cool to see a Stinger revival in the form of the Visiona Meta Turismo or something similar, if its fate depends on the economics working out, I've got a feeling we're going to be waiting for a long, long time.