Last week Kia Motors took the wraps off the all-new Kia Sportage, with an attractive, all-new interior and exterior design, a host of advanced new technology features and greater quality. The all-new Sportage will make its global debut at the Frankfurt International Motor Show on September 15, 2015.
Now entering its fourth-generation, the new Kia Sportage compact SUV builds comprehensively on the success of the outgoing model, offering an innovative and sophisticated package to buyers in an increasingly competitive market.
The new-look interior features high quality materials and design integrity, as well as great practicality and a range of technologies to improve comfort, convenience, connectivity and safety. A range of new and updated engines and transmissions will result in enhanced efficiency and performance, while ride, handling and refinement are all improved.
For the first time, a new ‘GT Line’ specification is available to Sportage customers. Designed and engineered to appeal to those looking for a sportier driving experience from their Sportage, the GT Line specification delivers all the versatility of the standard Sportage while adding greater visual and dynamic appeal to those customers that desire it.
Michael Cole, Chief Operating Officer, Kia Motors Europe, commented: “The Kia Sportage has helped drive our sustained growth and success across Europe in recent years. It’s an incredibly important car for us, particularly as more customers are turning to SUVs and competition in the rapidly growing compact segment is now fiercer than ever.”
Cole added: “In Europe, the Sportage is Kia’s flagship car, clearly demonstrating our brand values best and consistently accounting for more than a quarter of our European sales. As this hotly-contested segment continues to expand, the new Sportage will reinforce our position among the market leaders, leading the way in terms of its refined innovation, distinctive design and high material quality.”
The Kia Sportage is manufactured at Kia’s production facility in Žilina, Slovakia, and in Korea at the Gwangju facility. It remains the brand’s bestselling model in Europe, with more than 97,000 sold across Europe in 2014, accounting for 27.5% of Kia sales.
The fourth-generation Kia Sportage features a bold new look, with the vehicle’s designers creating a sense of sporty and powerful energy from every angle. The design of the new Sportage has been led by Kia’s European design studio in Frankfurt, Germany, with input from the brand’s Namyang, Korea and Irvine, California design centres.
Echoing the contrast of smooth and sharp shapes found on some of the most iconic modern fighter jets, the Sportage creates visual harmony out of the tension between sharp, defined feature lines and smooth surfacing.
The attractive ‘face’ of the Sportage features the biggest change to the car’s design over the outgoing model, with Kia’s hallmark ‘tiger-nose’ grille and the car’s headlamps separated for the new model. The headlamps are now positioned higher, sweeping back along the outer edges of the sharply-detailed bonnet. A lower, wider grille – enlarged to support greater engine cooling – adds more volume to the lower half of the Sportage’s face.
The result is a more imposing appearance and a more stable-looking stance, despite the new model retaining the same 1,855 mm width as its predecessor.
GT Line models develop the exterior look further, featuring new ‘ice-cube’ LED fog lamps, inspired by those found on the high-powered cee’d GT, and aluminium-effect skid plates.
The all-new Sportage maintains its highly-recognisable profile, with a 30 mm longer wheelbase (now 2,670 mm), 40 mm greater overall vehicle length (to 4,480 mm) and longer, more aerodynamic rear spoiler resulting in a more swept-back shape.
From the highest point of the roof (1,635 mm – unchanged over the outgoing model), the Sportage’s silhouette gently tapers towards the rear of the car, while bolder wheel arches, sharp features lines, and smooth surfacing endow the Sportage with a more dynamic look. The overall effect is inspired by the defined musculature of a sprinter driving out of the starting blocks. Longer front overhangs (up by 20 mm) and shorter rear overhangs (reduced by 10 mm) add to the car’s more raked profile.
At the rear, the new Sportage features more horizontal forms and clearly defined features lines, with smooth bodywork on the tailgate, emphasising the car’s width and giving the compact SUV a more stable appearance.
Inspired by the 2013 Kia Provo concept, slim combination lamps running along a horizontal parallel are joined together by a strip that runs the width of the rear, while the turn signals and reversing lights are separate, located lower down to add more visual weight to the lower half. The Kia Sportage GT Line also features dual exhaust mufflers and metal-effect rear underbody diffuser for a sportier appearance.
The all-new Sportage is available with a choice of 16-, 17- or 19-inch aluminium alloy wheel designs, while the GT Line specification comes with a unique 19-inch wheel option as standard.
