One new category that the South Korean automotive industry are soon to be dipping their toe into is the niche of a crossover wagon. In the case of Kia, the company are reported to be considering such a vehicle based off their Ceed Sportwagon.
While the car had been introduced in hatch from, later evolving into an estate, Kia seems be bolder in their attempts of trial and error. Currently, their Sportage and the Tuscon from sister company Hyundai have been strong performers for each.
The jacked-up estate wagon, though, is a type of car that has not been explored much outside of Europe, hence the scarcity of models to merge from North American and Asian automakers. The only examples of relative recentness that spring to mind would be the Volkswagen Passat Alltrack, Golf Alltrack, Audi’s various Allroad models, Mercedes-Benz’s All-Terrain, and Volvo’s Cross Country.
It’s unclear whether Kia’s more mass market take on the wagon crossover will feature all wheel drive or stick with its default front-drive layout. According to Autocar, Kia’s European design chief Gregory Guillaume believes that there are plenty of opportunities for a crossover to slot in between the Sportage and the smaller Stonic.
Conversely, it would be possible for Kia to further enlarge the Sportage to allow more breathing room for this high-riding Ceed-based entrant, one that would become a popular variant and body style for going forward.
In the words of Arthur Martins, head of sales and marketing for Kia Europe: “the gigantic trend to SUVs won’t end, but the most progressive customers who were looking at SUVs five, six years ago, see SUVs as mainstream now and are looking for different stuff.”
Within the next few years, Kia’s range of Ceed body styles could balloon from just 1 to a total of 4, with the final one being a three-door GT hatch mean to fill the role of the ‘hot’ option while also replacing the Pro_cee’d.
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