Kia Contacting It is New K9 Rear-Drive Flagship “Quoris” Outside Korea [Photos]

Kia has announced that it is naming its rear-drive flagship K9 sedan “Quoris” in non-Korean, global markets. The company says it is still evaluating whether it will bring the car here to the U.S., but we know it’s coming sometime next year, likely as a 2013 model. That means the sedan probably will be called Quoris here, too, since we aren’t in, uh, Korea.

While we knew Kia was going to rename the K9 before sending it to different markets, we weren’t expecting such a strange moniker. What’s a Quoris? We couldn’t tell you—but we can throw out a few guesses as to what it isn’t. It isn’t a row of backup singers, and it certainly isn’t catchy or pleasant-sounding.

Regardless of what kind of imagery the name conjures, at least the Quoris’s bodywork isn’t too hard to look at. The photos you see here and in the gallery below are of some K9-badged prototypes we recently stumbled on while they were undergoing testing in the States. In the metal, the car looks just as generic and BMW 5/6/7-series–like as it does in photos. The fender vents resemble Maserati’s portholes, and the big Kia’s profile recalls that of the Hyundai Sonata. The global-market Quoris is expected to go on sale in the fall of this year, but if it comes to the U.S. it won’t be for another few months after that.