KIA Motors continues to reel in awards for its outstanding design, with the new KIA Sorento, the brand’s flagship SUV, receiving a prestigious ‘iF Design Award’ for the first time.
The jury of the globally-recognized design awards program honored the third generation of the Sorento with an award in the ‘Product’ category. As well as awarding the car for the overall quality of its design, the jury rated the car on criteria such as finish, degree of innovation, environmental impact and safety.
The all-new KIA Sorento is the seventh KIA model to secure an iF Design Award. In every year since 2010, at least one of the coveted awards has been scooped by KIA Motors, with previous winners from the brand including the KIA Venga, Sportage, Optima, Picanto, pro_cee’d and Soul.
“I am very proud of this award for the KIA Sorento because it is recognition of the great advance in quality we have succeeded in achieving in this model,” said Peter Schreyer, President and Chief Design Officer of KIA Motors Corporation and Hyundai Motor Company.
“The KIA Sorento unites the classic poise of an SUV with a premium look and feel that is particularly tangible in the cabin. It offers the very highest design quality and excellent value for money. This is largely the achievement of our international design teams – which is also why I am so delighted with this award.”
The new KIA Sorento was developed by the KIA design team in Namyang, Korea, assisted by the KIA Design Centres in Frankfurt, Germany and Irvine, California.
Great versatility, high-tech features and new all-wheel-drive system
The new KIA Sorento is a stylish and practical SUV with exceptional versatility and practicality. The smoother, swept-back profile and deeply sculpted surfaces give the Sorento a lithe, elegant appearance. The spacious interior follows the horizontal lines of the overall design concept and delivers a luxurious look and feel with top-quality materials throughout the cabin.
The new KIA Sorento has a longer wheelbase and provides more passenger room than its predecessor. The luggage area is larger, and thanks to the sliding, 60:40-split seat row it is even more versatile, holding up to 1,732 litres.
The KIA Sorento has a powerful and efficient 147 kW 2.2-litre turbodiesel engine, while four-wheel drive versions are fitted with Kia’s new DynamaxT All-Wheel-Drive system with torque vectoring.
The iF product design award
Since it was launched in 1953, the annual iF Design Award has become one of the world’s most important prizes for excellence in design. The award has its origins in the ‘Formgerechte Industrieerzeugnisse’ (Good Industrial Design) product shows initiated by the Hannover Messe, and is now one of the world’s largest design competitions.
The iF Design Award is presented in five disciplines. In 2015, companies from 53 countries participated in the iF design awards programme, submitting 4,783 designs. The new KIA Sorento was honored in the ‘Automobiles / Vehicles / Bikes’ category.
*The all-new KIA Sorento arrives in South Africa in the third quarter of 2015. More information about engine options and specification levels will be released closer to the local launch date.
