Kia’s Sportage brings its A-game

Published on 13 February, 2022

Overview

The brochure for the new Kia Sportage begins with four pages of pictures featuring a lovely green car almost dwarfed by three humans. The accompanying text talks about “the passion for the beauty of nature” and the “free-flowing bold and sophisticated organic form” before saying that “its beautifully shaped body creates such a strong presence”.

It was hard to relate these pictures with the rather aggressive looking black car that was on test for a week. It was almost as though the Korean giant was trying to publicly play down its SUV qualities and establish right-on credentials before actually giving people what they want; muscular, high-standing brutish vehicles that deliver both a feeling of power and safety.

But it is not as though Kia doesn’t know what it is doing with the Sportage. As Geraldine Herbert reported in our motoring supplement last Sunday, the popular SUV has been the company’s best selling model here for more than 10 years and is also the top model for the company in Europe and globally.

The fourth-generation model, even in its last year of life, was one of the country’s top 10 cars in 2021. In Britain the results are even more startling.

For the first few weeks of this year it was the country’s best selling car and while the first generation car sold around 11,000 units in the UK in the eight years from 1995, the fourth generation sold nearly 200,000 in the five years after 2016.

The new Sportage shares the same platform as its sister, the Hyundai Tucson, which remains this country’s top selling car by a country mile. Kia makes much play of the fact that the new car is designed for Europe and built on the continent with “ideal dimensions and proportions for European roads”.

Launch prices start at €38,000 for both the 1.6 petrol mild hybrid and 1.6 diesel versions in K3 specification, while there is a full hybrid model at €42,000 and a mix of different hybrid models and specs topping out at €44,500. A plug-in hybrid is coming later in the year.

I was driving the K3 petrol hybrid but still the specification was pretty high especially in safety and comfort terms; although K4 model would be tempting at €44,500 with its beige leather upholstery, driver memory seats, a far better 12.3” driver cluster display and the important blindspot collision avoidance.

Up front there is a lot of comfort and the rear space is good if not outstanding, likewise the luggage area which does house a space-saver spare wheel.

The new Sportage has the high vantage points so beloved of SUV drivers but the roof pillars in the front and rear are a bit obtrusive. The petrol HEV front-wheel drive Sportage on test was remarkably quick with an 0-100kmh of eight seconds, four quicker than the diesel.

I couldn’t get an accurate fix on the economy as the indicated range and the state of the fuel tank gave me very different readings. However, I think that the claimed 5.5 l/100km would be quite optimistic and you would be lucky to get 80pc of that, which all counts in these high fuel price times.

Kia, like everybody these days, gushes on about the design language of their vehicles and all the touchy-feely elements around the cabin. In fact Kia and Hyundai do have very smart fascia screens and technologies. Yet sometimes on the Sportage there is an element of style over substance, which is annoying.

It does stand out when viewed by itself; in the car park surrounded by its competitors it is so-so. I thought my regular passenger would be impressed but she just remarked that it seemed big and rather like an awful lot of others.

She would just sneer if it was pointed out that the brochure talks of the “dynamic organic silhouette with precise and striking side contours... bold rear spoiler and razor-style LED tail lights, (and that) the Sportage really is a choice that drives you and yours forward”.

Nevertheless, unlike some of my colleagues, I really liked driving the new Sportage. The cabin was good, there was an excellent feeling of control, the steering was responsive and the car felt much smaller and more agile than the look would suggest. It was a pleasure to be on the road with it.

The Kia seven-year warranty will take you and the Sportage to the cusp of 2030 when you can switch to the EV6 or one of the company’s other impressive full electric vehicles.

Go for the Experiment Green colour and you might feel that, despite being in a SUV, you are more in touch with the needs of the planet. But it will be an illusion. However the Sportage will do well and sell some 3,500 vehicles in a full year here; even if its “movement that inspires” slogan may be a bit over the top.

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What was not an illusion of nature was driving down in the Sportage to the Donadea Forest park in Co Kildare, which is undergoing a bit of an uplift with approach roads and car park
being resurfaced.

It is wonderful to walk among the trees on the smaller paths and really “forest bathe” without hardly meeting anyone else although, if you do, people are so friendly and helpful.

The dogs love it and I can walk anywhere, helped by a trusty shepherd’s crook that my parents gave me more than 40 years ago decorated with a
refashioned silver napkin ring which was a christening present from my godmother.

My other support of choice is a lovely walking stick, with a fox’s head carved at the top, presented to me years ago by the paper’s Country Matters columnist Joe ‘Boot’ Kennedy, for which I am ever grateful.

Donadea has the ruined 16th Century Castle home to the Aylmer family until 1935 and the wonderful protestant St Peter’s church which is very much in use. In the church yard it was very special to come across a bench and plaque under the Spanish Chestnut Tree dedicated to the witty and brilliant solicitor Gerard Fanning, who gave great legal advice to this newspaper group in the years before his death in 2004 at the absurdly young age of 50.

Rest awhile on the bench and be grateful to be there. It’s worth the drive.