At this year's 2014 New York International Auto Show, Kia finally released it's final refresh on a lineup that has continued to get better and better looking. That final piece was the 2015 Sedona minivan MPV, as it debuted with a face ready to take on a segment that has slightly been taken over by the overwhelming uptick of crossovers. We were fortunate enough to get a little bit of time with Chief Design Officer of Kia Motors Peter Schreyer to discuss the new car with us a bit, and explain just how the attractive design came to be.
Interview by Tony Markovich (@T_Marko)
How’s your day been?
Very busy. We’ve had a lot of interviews, a lot of attention for the new Sedona.
Yes. It's a pretty good-looking minivan.
Yeah, it looks great. And it's not a minivan, it’s an MPV.
MPV. Right.
Yeah, it's really good-looking. I actually test drove one last week in Korea and it was the first time that I saw it outside on the street. It really looks super. It also looks super when someone else drives in it, when you see it moving. And when you sit inside and you drive it, it has a real premium feel to it. It's really nice.
What was the initial approach when you guys were completely redesigning this?
At very first, we had a show car called KB7 at the Detroit show two years ago and we kind of built on that. Pretty soon we found out that we had to deliver a lot more space and a lot more functionality, so the car got quite a bit longer. We could not really translate the show car into a production car, but the show car gave us a lot of inspiration for how to do the production car. It's still sort of carrying that spirit, and this is also why I think it came out as nice and unique as it is.
Like all Kias, the Sedona uses the Tiger nose design. How have you been able to adapt that to look proportionally right on all the different types of cars?
Yeah, it's an identifier for KIA, so it creates a lot of brand awareness. You recognize the cars, but you need to do it in a way that you create a certain hierarchy between different types and different sizes of cars. You can make it flatter or change the kind of headlight design, making it wider, having it open to the side, or having everything closed. In this case, it's closed and the headlights are touching it. So, there’s different ways of interpreting it.
The grill actually has a different texture. It’s not hexagonal.
There are two versions. One is more like a grid with horizontal louvers and one that has little dots. That's the one we are sitting in at the moment.
The front end almost has a crossover look to it. How was that segment's popularity right now considered when designing this vehicle?
We wanted to give the car a kind of mature look and stance. When you design these kinds of things, designers should put themselves in shoes of the customer and do the car in a way they want to drive it themselves. It shouldn't be, "okay, it's just supposed to be a minivan, I don’t care." This is very important and I think this is the way it came out. It has the kind of Crossover, almost SUV-ish look to it and it has this kind of proud stance and I think it makes a big difference. It's something I would drive. I would love to have one.
RELATED: Not Surprising: The 2015 Kia Sedona Is a Pretty Decent-Looking Minivan
RELATED: Kia Is Missing This One Easy Thing That Could Perpetuate Its Brand Refresh
RELATED: How the Kia GT4 Stinger Stacks Up Against the Subaru BRZ and Scion FR-S
