The next generation Kia Sportage appeared again and our colleagues at AutoPost have caught it in detail, but we also have the release date. The 5th gen Sportage will debut on April next year, that means that it will arrive 8 months after the new generation Tucson. Kia just launched a 2021 Sportage model in South Korea to keep it fresh until April, but specially after the release of the All-New Tucson.
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What we know so far?
The next generation Sportage is a long awaited model. We already have seen the Tucson testing but we were waiting for the Sportage due to as included on Kia’s Product Plan Schedule for 2020 and all models announced on it were already released (Bongo 3 EV, Sorento & Sorento HEV or Sedona-Carnival) we were worried about the Sportage, more after reading some rumours of delay due to design changes.
But here it is! We shared pictures of a SUV a few days ago and despite we were pretty convinced that we were in front of the new generation Sportage, we prefered to be cautious about it, but now we can see that prototype was the new Sportage and today we have more pictures that demonstrate it.
Despite we said NQ4, (as you can see in the picture below, it was originally codenamed as NQ4) but looks like Kia finally called it NQ5 (there are several parts of the cars that where NQ5 is handwritten. The original Sportage was the NB7, and happened before Hyundai bought Kia, while the KM, SL, QL (the current one) were built in the HMG’s era.
This Sportage prototype is on an early stage of development, as it has provisinal headlights and taillights. Despite that you can have an idea of the design and the real thing is I expected that look more like an small Sorento, but looks like Kia will premiere a new design language with the new Sportage, because it looks totally different.
KA4 is Carnival, NX4 is Tucson, CN7 is Elantra and NQ4 was Sportage subsequent of QL
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Despite the high level of camouflage, we can see that the design it’s not even close to any current model of Kia (check the new mirrors too) so we can expect a new concept car soon that could premiere the new design identity, like Hyundai did with the Vision T and All-New Tucson. Inside we can see some of the latest model, like the door patterns, similar to Sorento or Carnival.
The new Sportage had suffered a delay according to the product plan schedule, like with the Tucson (spied for the first time in July 2019 and to be released in August 2020) we should have seen the Sportage almost ready to production by this time and the reality is only on stage 1.
Kia recently released in South Korea the 2021 Sportage, adding the Gravity trim that was very succesful on the Mohave and Seltos, in a way to keep it fresh. The Sportage Gravity has a differentiated design elements based in a black theme. The Gravity trim implemented a more dynamic image by applying black color to the exclusive radiator grille and exterior key points.
The front part is equipped with a special radiator grille finished in piano black in a new mesh pattern and a three-dimensional black front skid plate emphasizing the edges. In addition, rear black bumper garnish, black skid plate, 19-inch black wheel, black roof rack, and black molding were applied. Inside is now equipped with a 4.2-inch supervision cluster (instead of the previous 3.5-inch) and an electronic parking brake with an auto-hold function.
