In the same year that Kia is celebrating 20 years of selling cars in the U.S., it's busy smashing every one of its sales records. Last year Kia shifted just over 500,000 units — itself a company record — but already in the first three-quarters of 2014 it's sold more than 445,000. And there's more to come with a brand-new, Georgia-built Sorento midsize crossover (Kia's third best-selling model behind the Optima and Soul) due in showrooms in early 2015. We skipped the line and traveled to South Korea to drive a European-spec version way ahead of schedule.
While we won't have detailed U.S. specs until the car debuts at the L.A. show later this month, we do know that the Sorento's styling isn't likely to change one bit. That's because the design was sketched at its sprawling new Namyang Design Center in Hwaseong, South Korea, with a global audience in mind. Some might call it bland — Kia calls it sophisticated — but the smooth surfaces and simple graphics for the grille, front intakes, headlights, and taillights are unlikely to divide opinion. Look closely and there are flourishes to be found, such as the 3-D diamond-pattern grille, but the emphasis is very much on quality ahead of daring design.
Nowhere is that more evident than with the new interior (designed at Kia's European design center in Frankfurt, Germany), which is smothered in soft-touch surfaces and higher-quality materials than existing Kia customers will be used to. Taking pride of place is a new, larger widescreen display framed by an expensive-looking brushed-aluminum effect plastic. Below that are two banks of switchgear finished in matte black, with gloss plastics on the side of the transmission tunnel. It's hardly revolutionary stuff, but Kia knows if it wants to shift the brand image upward, it needs to execute the basics well.
The basics for a crossover means getting the cabin functionality right, too, and the designers have hit the nail on the head. The 2016 Sorento is available with five or seven seats, and we'd strongly recommend going for the latter because there's very little to lose. When you don't need the third row of seats (big enough for adults, but only for short trips), they fold flush into the floor at the tug of a cord, boosting trunk capacity. Pull a pair of levers in the side of the trunk, and the 60/40 split second row follows suit and flops forward, opening up additional storage space. The second row slides back and forth, too, if you're prepared to sacrifice some of your legroom for those squashed into the third row.
