Debut for new Kia Sportage

Kia Motors Europe has revealed the first official exterior images of the new Kia Sportage. Featuring an attractive new design, the new Sportage will make its global debut at the Frankfurt International Motor Show on 15 September 2015.

Entering its fourth-generation, the Sportage features a bold, progressive design, with the vehicle’s designers creating a sense of power and agility from every angle. Kia stylists say that the new car echoes the contrast of smooth and sharp shapes found on some of the most iconic modern fighter jets, creating a visual harmony out of the tension between sharp, defined feature lines and smooth surfacing.

The ‘face’ of the Sportage represents the biggest change to the car’s design, with the car’s headlamps no longer integrated with the grille for the new model, instead sweeping back along the outer edges of the more sharply-detailed bonnet and bolder wheel arches.

Immediately recognisable as a Kia, the Sportage’s lower, wider ‘tiger-nose’ grille adds more volume to the lower half of the Sportage’s face, resulting in a more imposing appearance and a more stable-looking stance. Kia say that it is characterised by its sportier, more raked profile.

From the side, the all-new Sportage retains the swept-back silhouette of the outgoing model, with a roofline that tapers slightly towards the rear of the car, longer front overhangs, shorter rear overhangs and longer wheelbase. Smooth bodywork, bolder wheel arches and sharp lines endow the Sportage with a more dynamic, muscular look.

At the rear, the horizontal forms and surface volume emphasise the car’s width and give the compact SUV a more stable appearance. The slim combination lamps are joined by a strip that runs the width of the rear, while turn signals and reversing lights are separated, relocated lower down to add more visual weight and a greater sense of stability to the lower half of the car.

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.