The Australian website also talked to Kia’s Chief Designer and the person responsible for bringing the brand’s styling up to par and in some cases, even bettering the competition, Peter Schreyer, who was quite enthusiastic about the prospect of designing a premium rear-wheel drive sedan, without however, confirming its existence.

“I think when you can work with the rear-wheel drive proportion it is always good for the designer,” said Schreyer. “For a big sedan it is the better proportion; fantastic proportion of course.” When asked if the K9 would also give birth to a new design direction for the company he said: “Always we try to do that … but I cannot talk about things that are probably in development.”

The report goes on to say the Kia might surprise us at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show with the unveiling of the K9, either in production form as a concept study. If the rumors are true, you can bet on the K9 (or whatever name Kia decides to use) being based on the platform and mechanical hardware of the Genesis sedan.

Kia’s current top offering in the sedan segment is the front-wheel drive Cadenza, called the K7 (hence the reports on the K9 name) in its home market. According to Kia officials, the Cadenza will be launched in the States before the end of 2011.

Kia Motors unveiled its concept car SOUL Burner during 2008 the Geneva Motor Show. The Kia SOUL Burner features an all black color with tattoos of a large dragon creeping over the hood and a small dragon climbing up the C-Pillar. The front bumper comes with L-shaped day-light LED driving lamps around the outer edges and the rear has two vertical exhaust pipes on the extremes of the bumper and lastly the inside of the SOUL Burner has four individual sports seats and cabin trim divided horizontally.

We wouldn’t go as far as calling it a leak as the Kia Soul has already been revealed at the Paris Show  but nonetheless, the first pictures of the U.S.-spec subcompact wannabe-crossover have made their way into the blogosphere. The photos are accompanied by a second set of images from a scanned brochure that show us the options that are being made available to the Canadian-spec model. The Soul will make its first public appearance on U.S. soil at the LA Auto Show on November 19 with sales scheduled to begin in early 2009.