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Over the last few years, Kia Motors has been working on a new look for its vehicles, a new style and design that can evolve with the automaker. As long as we can remember, Kia Motors vehicles were symbolized by the tiger-nose grille integrated into the front fascia. Then the 2018 Kia Stinger came along and suddenly sloping rooflines for a more aggressive and sharper look became popular. Recently, Kia Motors started tweaking its signature tiger-nose grille and is promoting its new tiger-face. One of the first vehicles to don this new look is the new 2021 Kia Optima.
In October 2019, new renderings of the 2021 Kia Optima, known as the K5 in the South Korean auto market, surfaced on the interwebs. It didn’t take long for many to examine the new look of the K5 and ponder whether any of these designs would actually make it into the actual vehicle. It’s widely known that most of the time, what an automaker promotes in a render or prototype concept is almost never what comes off the production line. The 2021 Kia Optima is what we call a c-c-c-combo-breaker!
The differences between the render and the actual vehicle are very slim. Check out the image above. In the front fascia we have a sloping roof, one grille, and angular headlights in the shape of lightning that draw the eyes towards the new tiger-face grille. Look at the image below and the new 2021 Kia Optima kept most of the styling cues, except it has two grilles because this is still an internal combustion engine-powered vehicle. Kia Motors hasn’t gone all-electric yet.
We can also see the vehicle itself has gotten a little longer in the nose and across the wheelbase. The change in numbers isn’t large, but it’s enough to give the compact sedan a whole new look. For 2021, the Kia Optima will be 16-feet long, 6.1-feet wide, a little under five feet tall, and the wheelbase is a little longer than nine feet. Say goodbye to the original compact sedan, because the new Kia Optima is slowly breaking fastback territory.
The rear fascia also shares many similarities to the render. Although we can’t see past the trunk, the LED bar strip light is still there, stretching across the width of the car with a new design. The borderless windows from the render don’t make it into the final product, but that’s most likely for safety reasons. For those really looking to embrace the new look of the Kia Optima and want to push the boundaries of a sports car, there are a number of wheel options ranging from 16-inch alloy wheels to 19-inch rims on the more high-end trims. No word on the powertrain options just yet – here’s hoping the new 2021 Kia Optima shares more of the Kia Stinger’s blood and gets a powerful twin-turbo V6 at some point.
Kia Motors is still keeping the interior of the 2021 Kia Optima in the dark, but we expect it to be a little roomier and upgraded with all sorts of tech. The news about the new Kia Optima is just starting. Follow us on NowCar social media to learn more.