Kia Motors Motors America announced today that they will team up with Kinetic Motorsports to bring the Kia Forte Koup to compete in the Street Tuner class in the Koni Challenge next year.  Stalwarts Andy Lally and Nic Jonsson have been tapped by Kia and Kinetic to pilot the cars in 2010.

This is big news.  A few years back Korean tire manufacturers started popping up in motorsports, Hankook probably being one of the first and most notable.  They were completely unknown at that time.  Now, I think Hankook has become a name known for cheap tires.  Kia is much more well known than those tire makers were back then and but the reputation they have is definitely not for something like this.  Let me go on the record as saying that I’m in favor of any manufacturer getting involved in motorsports.  The more the merrier.

BUT…

This just seems weird to me.  Kias are cheap, that’s their shtick.  Apparently now they’re shooting for edgy, fast, and cool.  Maybe a new crop of young kids will buy this but I don’t think I’m going to be able to.  I can see why Street Tuner may appeal to them as it does contain many of their compact car competitors but will they be competitive?  They have definitely chosen the right team to go with.  Kinetic has what it takes to build a winning program and the drivers are obviously no slouches either.

What I absolutely have to say about this more than anything else is that I hate their use of the word Koup.  I don’t like purposefully misspelling words for originality or cuteness.  According to Wikipedia, the word is coupe is derived from the French word couper which means to cut.  I don’t get the correlation but none the less it isn’t from the French word kouper so don’t f with it.  I don’t like z’s on the end of words that are supposed to represent s’s.  I don’t like x’ at the end of words that are supposed to replaces “icks”.  It’s just lame.

Well, I’m going to go email TaTa Motors to see if they’ll be making any announcements soon.  When in Rome…

You can read the full press release relating to the Kia Koups entrance into the Konee Challenge Sereez here.