A new image floating around the web purports to be the facelifted Kia Sorento. The design cues hint at a striking and slab-shaped SUV with close ties to the new Hyundai Santa Fe and the Kia EV9. The update brings the new SUV closer into line with the entire rest of the family.
When the Sorento debuted in 2020 it surprised some by coming to market with a design that wasn’t all that similar to the successful Telluride. Now, just a few years later it’s receiving a drastic facelift that should see it integrated into the Kia brand identity more closely. A new sketch could give us our cleanest look at its new face.
First spotted by TheKoreanCarBlog, this image comes to us from the Instagram feed of Jung_Young_Teak. It’s unclear whether or not they pulled the image from a since-deleted Kia post or if it’s a rendering but the styling cues look dead on with what we’ve seen in the real world.
More: Model Jodie Kidd Electrocuted With 1M Volts To Show Off Kia EV9’s Power
The daytime running lights and headlights closely mimic Kia’s flagship EV9 SUV and the fender treatment resembles that of the Telluride. The shift away from the current design is in harmony with the mechanically similar Hyundai Santa Fe too. That SUV just received a daring and dramatic design change itself.
While spy shots haven’t revealed much about the grille, this teaser indicates that the Sorento will continue on with the ‘tiger nose’ design found on the rest of the Kia family. Of course, it needs such a grille because this isn’t an EV and while we know it’ll have a combustion engine, there’s no word from Kia on what it’ll be.
Expectations are high that Kia will include a vastly updated tech package in the new Sorento with larger infotainment and driver information displays along with improved driver aids as well. We expect to see this SUV break cover no earlier than late this year or early in 2024.