Detroit 2016: Telluride is the Kia for your country manor, apparently
The Kia Telluride is a premium full-size SUV, which explores new market for the brand
According to Kia America’s chief designer Tom Kearns, when Peter Schreyer visited the company’s California studio to check on progress, he told the team to imagine they were driving along the driveway of a British country house, with gravel crunching under the tyres and asked them to design the interior they imagined they’d be sitting in.
Initially this seems at odds with Kia’s more humble image, but there’s apparently demand for a car that’s bigger than the current Sorento, but to enter that market there is a need to appear more premium.
The resulting car has a quite regal stance with a frontal treatment – especially around the front lamps – that would be fitting for a Rolls-Royce or Bentley. And its overall stance is decidedly traditional SUV: “We think there’s space for this now, because almost everyone else is moving to crossovers,” says Kearns.
There are shades of premium British cars in the treatment of the nose, and Peter Horbury-era Volvo in the soft shoulder and rear lamp graphics, but the application of the tiger nose graphic to the side windows and the floating grille ensure it still carries the Kia brand. The very product-like execution of details such as the door handles and lower body brightwork are also consistent with previous concepts.
Overall the exterior is handsome but somewhat lack cohesion, particularly the relationship between the nose and the rest of the body.
Inside the expected three rows of seats are shunned in favour of four individual seats. The idea, of course, is to perpetuate the feeling of premium space but rather less premium is are the stickers that are littered around the interior in lieu of a working – or even simulated – HMI system.
Overall one of the more interesting cars of the show and an interesting brand extension. Whether it’s befitting of Downton Abbey is another matter.
