Kia Motors has taken 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 later this month.
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, said: “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. 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,” he added.
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 2,670mm), 40mm greater overall vehicle length (to 4,480mm) and longer, more aerodynamic rear spoiler resulting in a more swept-back shape. From the highest point of the roof (1,635mm – 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 20mm) and shorter rear overhangs (reduced by 10mm) 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 attractive new design also makes this the most aerodynamic Sportage to date, with drag reduced from 0.35 to 0.33 Cd – a result of the re-profiled undercover and newly-designed bumper. 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.
The Sportage boasts an all-new interior, representing one of the most significant improvements over the third-generation car. The focus for the design team behind the new interior was to create a cabin which offered a wide, driver-oriented dashboard, with a simple, modern design. The interior blends metalwork with soft-touch materials and clearly defined horizontal lines, portraying a high level of mechanical precision. The Sportage’s all-new cabin boasts a high standard of material quality, with a far greater proportion of soft-touch materials and the use of cloth, leather and stitching creating a more luxurious ambience. The result is an interior that majors on refinement and modern sophistication, with greater soundproofing measures adopted to reduce significantly the intrusion of exterior noise.
Where the cabin of the outgoing Sportage is focused around a clearly-defined central console, with a vertical design, the new model features horizontal lines to emphasise the width of the interior more effectively and generate a greater impression of space and sportiness. The confident lateral design of the dashboard divides it into two clear zones – ‘display’ and ‘control’. The ‘display’ zone is focused purely on delivering information to occupants in the clearest way possible via the driver’s instrument binnacle and optional new seven or eight-inch HMI (human-machine interface) systems in the centre of the dashboard. Below a clear line running the length of the dashboard is the ‘control’ zone, with the central console cascading downwards and tilted 10 degrees towards the driver. With many functions now found on the optional touchscreen infotainment and navigation system, the new, uncluttered dashboard offers drivers a highly ergonomic layout with the ‘control’ zone’s functions designed to be clearly visible when on the move.
The division between the interior’s two zones also lends itself to single or two-tone colour schemes, with customers able to choose from either a single-tone (black) or two-tone (Dark and Light Grey or Black and Canyon Beige) cabin. The console is finished in black, for a classy, stylish appearance, regardless of the interior colours chosen. Buyers specifying the new GT Line can enjoy a cabin with a slightly sportier feel, with a D-shaped leather steering wheel, high quality piano black fascia and aluminium alloy pedals.
The fourth-generation model is set to be the most practical Sportage yet thanks to increased exterior and interior dimensions, with the vehicle’s development teams realising greater space and comfort for all passengers. Passenger space is increased, with headroom rising to 997mm (+5mm) and 993mm (+16mm) for front and rear passengers respectively, while maximum legroom has expanded to 1,129mm (+ 19mm) and 970mm (+7mm). With passengers able to enjoy extra space, development teams have delivered on a promise to improve comfort even more.
In the front, drivers not only enjoy more legroom, but the seats have been redesigned. The Sportage can now be specified with three-way front heat seating, 10-way power control with lumbar support for the driver’s seat and eight-way power control for the passenger seat. Stiffer seat frames, with greater use of high tensile steel, and redesigned springs and pads – for front and rear – cut the level of vibration in the seats, while reducing seat weight by 2.5kg and improving durability. In the rear, a 40mm lower interior floor – without sacrificing exterior ground clearance – and 30mm higher rear bench hip point mean second-row passengers benefit from a more natural and comfortable seating posture and improved under-thigh support. The Sportage’s reclining rear seats now offer 17 steps – from 23 to 37 degrees, with the reclining lever relocated from the upper seat-back to the lower side of the seat to make it easier for rear passengers to get truly comfortable. Rear passengers can also choose from dual-strength seat heating for cushion and back rest – ideal for colder mornings.
For all models, visibility is improved out of the front and rear. Forward visibility is aided by a lowered A-pillar base, while the A-pillar itself has been made thinner. Side mirrors sit slightly lower on the door without impairing the driver’s rear view – this is further aided by the new thinner C-pillars (62mm thinner compared to the third-generation Sportage) and taller rear glass (+30mm). Not only do these changes help visibility, they add a greater feeling of air and space to the cabin – enhanced by the 104mm-longer optional panoramic sunroof opening (now 490mm).
The new body’s larger dimensions mean cargo space in the fourth-generation Sportage has expanded from 465 litres to 503 litres, made more practical by a dual-height luggage floor, allowing taller items to fit into the boot and still remain hidden by the tonneau cover. The Sportage also features a new under-floor tonneau cover storage area – unique in the class. Despite the new Sportage being no wider than the outgoing model, by re-engineering the rear section of the body the luggage area is 35mm wider, while the upper edge of the boot lip is lowered so the lift-over height for heavy items is just 732mm (down 47mm).
The all-new Sportage has greater fuel capacity than the third-generation model, with the fuel tank increasing from 58 litres to 62, cutting the number of fuel pump visits that owners of the new car will have to make throughout the lifetime of the vehicle (particularly when combined with all-round improvements to fuel economy).
Key to the comfort of occupants in the new Sportage are the efforts made by Kia engineers to cut noise, vibration and harshness (NVH). Significant changes over the outgoing model render the Sportage one of the most refined cars in its class, with less cabin noise than many other rivals in the C-SUV segment. Road noise is further reduced with the adoption of new bushings in the rear suspension to isolate road noise at source, and more sound-absorbent materials throughout the Sportage’s wheel arches. Wind noise is also reduced as a result of thicker front side glass, a new dual lip seal for the panoramic sunroof and additional soundproofing in the doors. A range of improvements cuts vibrations throughout the car, making the Sportage’s cabin one of the most refined and relaxing among rivals. This has been achieved with all-round improvements to body stiffness, particularly through the floor of the vehicle, as well as the introduction of larger, more absorbent mounts for the transmission, and improved seat design. Alloy wheels that are 49 per cent stiffer also reduce the level of vibration intruding on the interior.
Safety, as always, is a top priority for Kia, and the all-new Kia Sportage builds on the brand’s reputation for offering the highest standards in occupant and pedestrian crash safety. The fourth-generation of Kia’s best-seller has been engineered to meet the toughest and most demanding crash safety tests, thanks to an even stronger bodyshell, a wide array of passive safety equipment and the latest active safety and autonomous hazard avoidance technologies. The structure of the new Sportage is significantly stronger, thanks in large part to the extensive use of ultra-high tensile steel (UHTS) to improve joint stiffness and introduce more effective impact load paths throughout the body. By dramatically strengthening the core structure of the new Sportage, torsional rigidity has been improved by 39 per cent from one generation to the next. The third-generation Sportage was made up of 18 per cent UHTS, compared to 51 per cent for the body of the new model. The increased use of advanced hot-stamped steel further improves the integrity of the body. The stronger steel has been used in particular to reinforce the A-, B- and C-pillars, side sills, roof structures and wheel arches. The Sportage is fitted as standard with a large number of airbags, further improving passive safety for occupants, with airbags for driver and front passenger, first row side airbags, and first and second row curtain airbags. ISOFIX child-seat tether and anchor points are fitted as standard to the second row of seats, to safely secure younger passengers.
Pedestrian safety is further improved with a lower leading edge on the bonnet and a larger impact absorption area, which has been revised with greater use of highly-absorbent safety foam and synthetic rubber, further helping to protect pedestrians in the event of a collision. The Sportage is also available with a range of active safety systems to mitigate the chances of a pedestrian collision. The new Sportage will perform strongly in the Euro NCAP’s important Safety Assist category, which analyses the latest driver assistance technologies and their effectiveness in avoiding accidents and mitigating injuries. Kia’s Vehicle Stability Management (VSM) system, fitted as standard to the fourth-generation car, helps ensure stability under braking and cornering through careful management of the vehicle’s Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and electric motor-driven power steering. Both systems come into play as soon as the Sportage’s many sensors detect a loss of traction, helping the driver to remain safely in control of the vehicle.
Buyers of the new Sportage will be able to choose from the most up-to-date active hazard-avoidance technologies to ensure occupants’ safety at all times – depending on market. Available systems will include:
The Kia Sportage is manufactured at Kia’s production facility in Žilina, Slovakia and remains the brand’s bestselling model in Europe with more than 97,000 sold across Europe in 2014, accounting for 27.5 per cent of Kia sales.
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