Kia will introduce an entire new model range over the next three years as part of its efforts to become a 500,000 cars a year brand in Europe by the end of the decade.
“Every car will change before the end of 2018 and there will be new products in new segments,” said the COO of Kia Motors Europe, Michael Cole, on the eve of the Geneva show.
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A clue to the first of those new entrants was unveiled at Kia’s pre-show gathering. The vivid red Sportspace concept hinted at the estate version of the Optima due for launch next year.
It will be Kia’s first D-segment estate and while the company’s executives will not officially confirm that it is on the way they are bullish about the sales prospects.
Gregory Guillaume, who heads up Kia’s European design studio which created the Sportspace, says it is a “getaway car” – though not in the criminal sense.
“It is the sort of car you could use for business during the week and then to escape to the ski slopes at the weekend,” he said. “I studied design in Switzerland and I used to go skiing often. I have wanted to design a car like this for a long time.
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By GlobalData“I love Geneva and I always thought that one day I would like to do the perfect show car tied around Geneva and ski-ing. Even the colour is right. Red is the colour of Switzerland, but I wanted it to be a very loud red.
“Everybody knows that if you do not offer this body style in this sector you can not be a serious player in Europe, and we did do a serious car as well.
“What’s happening is that there are two distinct styles out there. There is the classic wagon, like the [Mercedes] E-Class, and there are what are called the shooting brakes. We wanted to do something with sportiness and space and those are the two words we wrote down – sport and space without ever intending that to be the name. We saw an opportunity to do it different, more like a stretched hatchback.”
Already this year Kia has replaced its largest SUV and European flagship, the Sorento, and will soon have a new Optima saloon, designed in Europe like the current model. Before the year is over Kia will also reveal a replacement for its best-selling model in Europe, the Slovakian-built Sportage crossover which was responsible for 97,000 of the company’s 354,000 sales in the region in 2014. It is due for launch early in 2016, to be followed by the next-generation Rio supermini.
