In case you forgot, Kia once made a luxury car called the K900. And then Kia stopped making it because it sold only 455 units in the last year of production. Now Kia is at it again with the K900, and it’s $10,000 more expensive. Brilliant!
You may remember the K900 as the car basketball star LeBron James drove. Oh, you don’t remember LeBron rocking a Kia? It’s a thing that happened at least once.
The K900 was developed because someone in Korea probably thought, “Hey, remember the VW Phaeton? That worked out great and we should try it too!” It was a luxury car….from Kia. This was long before the awesome, but not cheap Kia Stinger. It was meant to be a luxury option mostly for fancy business execs in Korea, but was a real head-scratcher in the U.S. market.
So to almost no one’s surprise, Kia struggled to sell the K900 even with an original price that was just under $50,000. Did it offer a pretty excellent value when compared to much more expensive German luxury sedans? Sure, but the luxury car market is a tough space and many buyers care about the badge on their luxury car.
Now that Kia’s sister brand Hyundai is separating the Genesis cars into its own luxury line, Kia once a piece of the action again. The 2019 K900 shares a platform with the Genesis G80 and G90 sedans. It looks good and under the hood is the same 3.3-liter twin-turbo V6 found in the Stinger.
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In order to split the difference between $42,000 G80 and the $68,000 G90, the K900 gets a starting price of $59,900, before destination. Now this car is absolutely loaded at that price point, though you can add the VIP package for an additional $4,000.
A Kia luxury sedan for almost $65,000. Will it work this time? Well, seeing as how the old K900 couldn’t move any metal at all for a cheaper price, and seeing as how the sedan market is in total decline, I think this price increase is absolutely what buyers want.
We predict a total reversal of the K900’s fortunes soon.
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