Detroit show: Kia outs all-new Cerato sedan

KIA Motors has provided a first glimpse at its all-new third-generation Cerato that will debut in its sedan form at the annual Detroit motor show next week.

Three design renderings of the coupe-style sedan appear to reveal styling inspiration from the Stinger sports sedan, which augurs well for Kia’s plan to maintain its impressive sales growth in the Australian small-car market this year and beyond.

Due to arrive in Australia around the end of March or first half of April this year, the Cerato sedan will be followed into local showrooms by the hatch version in the second half of the year.

The images were released today in South Korea where the Cerato is known as the Forte.

Kia describes the new Cerato as sporty and youthful, adding: “What is most noticeable is that the Forte (Cerato) has evolved from a cab-forward design to one that is decidedly swept-back.”

The familiar “tiger nose” grille remains front and centre, but the whole front design is more aggressive, with wide air openings and a prominent front splitter.

The sporty treatment is repeated at the back where LED tail-lights and twin exhaust tips are prominent. A horizontal strip between the lights is said to have been borrowed from the Sportage.

Although it is hard to see on the murky drawings, the indicator and reversing lights are mounted separately to the tail-lights, sitting lower down the body.

As always with such renderings, maximum-sized alloy wheels fill the wheelarches, but it remains to be seen how the actual production car pans out in this regard.

A sporty turbocharged variant is planned this time around, so this particular Cerato variant is likely to be based on that.

The interior drawing shows a huge free-standing touchscreen in the middle of the dash – a feature that is likely to appear in top-shelf variants.

Kia says the theme of the interior design is openness, “avoiding clutter with clean lines and minimal buttons that are intuitively placed below a large screen”.

It describes the air vents as “aeronautically inspired”, like those in the Stinger and a number of sportscars from rival manufacturers.

The Cerato has been one of Kia’s great success stories in Australia, achieving 18,731 sales last year, up 42.9 per cent on 2016.

Kia Motors Australia hopes to sell more than 20,000 Ceratos this year to maintain the upward trajectory.

GoAuto will have full reports on the new Cerato and its Australian roll-out from the Detroit show next week.