The present contribution aims to address a problem of thermoviscoelasticity for the analysis of the transition temperature and thermal stresses in an infinitely circular annular cylinder. The inner surface is traction-free and subjected to thermal shock heating, while the outer surface is thermally insulated and free of traction. In this work, in contrast to the various problems in which the thermal conductivity coefficient is considered to be fixed, this parameter is assumed to be variable depending on the temperature change. The problem is studied by presenting a new generalized thermoelastic model of thermal conductivity described by the Moore–Gibson–Thompson equation. The new model can be constructed by incorporating the relaxation time thermal model with the Green–Naghdi type III model. The Laplace transformation technique is used to obtain the exact expressions for the radial displacement, temperature and the distributions of thermal stresses. The effects of angular velocity, viscous parameter, and variance in thermal properties are also displayed to explain the comparisons of the physical fields.