Under grey South Korean skies, on a field-flanked road near the Namyang R&D facility, a test mule in heavy cladding pulls out a little way ahead of us and trundles off.
Back in Europe, on the outskirts of Stuttgart or Turin, I suspect my companion and I would be able to deduce pretty quickly what might be lurking under the fabric. But out here? Totally clueless.
The head-spinning scope of Hyundai Motor Group's product rollout means that here, on home ground, it could be anything.
Including, perhaps, an as yet unreleased Kia GT model. The ranks of this young performance sub-brand have swelled at an astonishing rate.
In a little over a decade since the Proceed GT arrived to nothing even close to a fanfare, the junior partner in the Hyundai-Kia axis has already given us 10 stand-alone derivatives and is getting stuck into the new PV5 minivan as you read this.
It took Volkswagen 42 years to reach that figure with GTI, and BMW needed 25 years with M, but platform-sharing and electrification have irreversibly reshaped the game.
Back at Namyang, where 14,000 HMG employees congregate every day, we briefly sit down with R&D boss Manfred Harrer to discover what we can expect of the GT project and how it will exist as a more demure understudy to the increasingly wild-and wacky-efforts of the Hyundai N sister division.
The more divisive elements of cars such as the Ioniq 5 N-piped-in exhaust burble and synthetic gearshifts - are an interesting place to start. Are they the future?
"We see these technologies as an amplifier, not a substitute, for the driving experience," says the man who, for the pleasure of it, completed a PhD on steering feel at the University of Bath.
Are his words a subtle dig, distancing Kia's more understated GT philosophy from N-style gimmicks? Perhaps. While Kia has capitulated and now offers its own 'Virtual Gear Shift' (VGS) in every GT model, the cars have softer, more authentic, more everyday personalities than those from N.
Harrer describes the character and degree of performance offered by the new EV3 and EV4 GTs as something owners can "naturally enjoy" day to day. Usability, then.
Of course the reality is that, as Harrer explains, HMG's army of engineers are platform-oriented rather than brand-focused, so the team that did the suspension rates and torque split for the restrained EV6 GT and its ilk is the same that gave us the headcase Ioniq 5 N.
In the case of the EV6 GT, we take Harrer's almost dismissive attitude to raw speed with a pinch of salt - the car's 641bhp sees it outpunch certain Ferraris.
Likewise, the 502bhp of the EV9 GT SUV is about what you got in something like a Range Rover Sport SVR not too long ago.
However, the 302bhp produced by the new, Skoda Enyaq vRS-rivalling EV5 GT and the 286bhp of the EV4 and EV3 GTs are fairly conservative figures in the electric era, and these are the cars that best represent what Kia is trying to purvey.
Kia is not hunting the likes of the Mercedes-AMG A45, and it is reluctant to push into a realm of limited-slip differentials, as the Abarth 600e and other go-faster Stellantis EVs now have.
The sat-back approach to performance is evident in the way Harrer talks about the VGS-gears are deployed as "indicators to help you cope with endless power", he says, rather than for blatting up and down a pretend gearbox for the hell of it.
It's a persuasive approach: performance suited to the real world and a gratifying tightness in the suspension, but underwritten by restrained design cues and more than enough comfort.
So far Kia's GT cars have fulfilled their brief almost too well. They are quick and assured but undemanding and rounded.
If there is a missing ingredient, and therefore head room for this sub-brand to explore further, it concerns real excitement and leading-edge dynamic polish when the moment arises.
You can't help wondering about the possibility of another stratum-a 'GT R' level, or somesuch.
"I like the idea," says Harrer. "You see a lot of car makers going that way, so why not? But I'm more [minded] to first talk about a dedicated model showing what GT stands for."
Are we looking at a return of the Stinger GT but with an electric powertrain? Working for a company that 'manages the message' as assiduously as HMG, Harrer obviously won't be drawn on specifics, but you would be foolish to rule it out.
And Harrer, who arrived in Korea with a background at Porsche and BMW, and who quickly repurposed the hitherto siloed Hyundai N team so it might spread its expertise more broadly across other model lines, is the man who would make it happen.
A POTTED HISTORY OF KIA'S GT CARS
Back in 2013 Kia introduced the £19,995 Proceed GT (pictured above) as an incipient stab at the performance sub-brand formula.
It would hit 62mph in less than eight seconds, had a decently precise manual 'box and was handsome enough for a warm hatch, but it wasn't about to tear anyone from their Golf GTI.
Four years later the 242bhp Optima GT arrived - another niche product that will be better remembered as the first hot(ish) Kia to benefit from oversight by Albert Biermann, former boss of BMW's M division.
But then, in 2017, lift-off: the Stinger GT S had some people drawing comparisons to the 'E39' M5, with its effortless 365bhp V6 and propensity for oversteer (thank you, sensibly sized tyres and a proper diff).
Yes, we ranked it last in a triple test with the Jaguar XE and BMW 4 Series, and it's fair to say Biermann was not best pleased by this outcome. But in hindsight the admittedly thirsty Stinger, even with its slightly woolly steering, was more likeable than the BMW and more entertaining than the Jag - and owners loved them dearly.
The Stinger was the first and thus far only purely rear-driven GT product, because while the K5 GT is still sold in some markets, don't be fooled by the rakish saloon body: the car is dragged along by a transverse turbo four.
And while the EV6 GT can lock the powertrain into rear-wheel drive, you need to engage Drift mode. And we can't see many owners doing that too often on the road.
Today the only GT models for the European market are both electric and four-wheel drive -and they are rapidly proliferating.
THREE GTs TO BUY
Kia Stinger GT (pictured above): The post-facelift Stinger GT S isn't quite the bargain you might have imagined, but the £34k example we found is warranted until 2029 and will feel contemporary enough inside. It's rare, rapid and mischievous.
Kia Proceed GT: With 201bhp and a manual gearbox, an early-ish Proceed GT hits the right notes for B-road fun without being too demanding the rest of the time. The cheapest examples now sit at around £4000.
Kia EV6 GT: An early EV6-first of the electric GT contingent-with fewer than 20,000 miles under its wheels and at roughly half the original, £60k price looks a good buy. The 77kWh battery and circa-220kW charging speeds still feel contemporary, and the performance is mighty.