WE RECENTLY featured Kia's slinky and striking Sportspace concept car and just to prove it wasn't a one-off, the Korean company has also shown us this, the Novo, writes William Scholes.
It strongly suggests that Kia's design-led renaissance is set to continue.
As is the way of these things, Kia has constructed a narrative to explain what sort of customers the designers had in mind when they designed the car - "modern urbanites with stressful jobs and frantic schedules," apparently - but leaving that aside, it gives a clear hint of how its styling will develop. Meanwhile, back in the here-andnow, Kia's new large Sorento SUV has gone on sale.
Reflecting the company's confidence in its product and its gradual move upmarket, the range-topping KX-4 model costs £40,995 - a price Kia couldn't have dreamed of charging for one of its cars until relatively recently.
Of more relevance and likely popularity will be the £28,795 KX-1 and £31,995 KX-2.
A 2.2-litre diesel engine with 197bhp and 325lb/ft is the sole engine option, though there is a choice of six-speed manual and automatic gearboxes.
Seven seats and four-wheel-drive are standard and a plethora of the latest safety kit - blind spot warnings, cross traffic alert, lane departure warning, and so on - is available.
It's a handsome looking machine and, says the company, marks the "start of the second phase of Kia's brand transformation". "This will see Kia match and surpass not only customer expectations but also the world's best car manufacturers for engineering, technology, refinement and quality," it says - a lofty aspiration but a measure of the scale of the company's ambition.