The Kia Sportage is a safe car to buy, it's competent in most skills that an SUV needs to be competent in, such as mild rough roading and carrying children to school and back. It wasn't much of a looker though.

If these pictures, which are allegedly the photographs KIA submitted for their EU patent filing, are true, then the Sportage can now count  good looks as one of it's strong points.

 

Admittedly the design is not ground breaking but it is a major step forward from the indecisive lines and proportions of the current generation Sportage. What is important here is that the car now looks coherent and confident.

The tiger-teeth windshield top is an interesting design feature but let's hope that Kia is not banking on that alone to shift metal.

For more pictures please follow the jump

 

Datuk Syed Hisham Syed Wazir

 

 

 

Naza Kia Sdn Bhd and Naza Kia Services Sdn Bhd have appointed automotive industry veteran, Datuk Syed Hisham Wazir as their Chief Operating Officer with immediate effect.

Syed Hisam started his career in the automotive industry more than 25 years ago. He was present at the ground breaking ceremony for the first Proton factory in Shah Alam.

KIA is nothing if not a resilient, innovative and bold car company. You may not think this of a mass market Korean carmaker but it is indeed very true.

In the past decade, the company has been constantly reinventing itself and finding new ways to make their cars better, all the while keeping a close eye on the goal of coming together with its sister company Hyundai, one of the five largest automakers in the world.

IN 2008, at the New York auto show, Kia showed the world the breadth of its ambition with the Koup concept. The car's design (ex-Audi man Peter Schreyer strikes again) was beautiful, but it was the figures thrown around which impressed - all-wheel drive, a 2.0-litre turbocharged engine, 293bhp and almost 400Nm of torque.

All this was to make it into production directly, so naturally we drooled. An affordable WRX competitor? Bring it on.