Kia has lifted the veil on its all-new, 2016 Optima, showing off evolved sheet metal, adding a turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder and introducing new tech features.
Transcript
(car engine revs) Kia has a hard act to follow in the all-new Optima. The previous generation was one of our favorite cars at cars.com.
This year's a redesign and it doesn't look like a whole ton has changed on the styling front, but there's a lot under the skin that's different. We'll take you through it. Now the prior generation Optima really hit it out of the park in terms of styling and so, this generation kind of builds on that somewhat subtly. You get some cues from Kia's K900 full-sized sedan up here in the grille. Come along the side wheel base, the distance between the front and the rear wheels up about half an inch overall, Kia says width up about an inch overall. Come around the back, you get some taillight cues now from Kia's Cadenza, another full-sized sedan. The new Optima doesn't take a huge leap forward in terms of design or materials versus its predecessor, which was actually a pretty nice cabin for the class. A much more horizontal layout here. It kind of splits things into two different levels versus more of the cockpit approach before. Plenty of room to spread out here and logical placement of controls with large knobs here, you can easily get to and plenty of storage cubbies down here along the center console. Really nice quilted leather here in the car at the auto show, I'm not as wild about some of the stitching along the dash and the upper doors it kind of has this sort of molded in look and feel to it. The old Optima actually had a legit leatherette wrapping around some of the instrument panel, that actually looked a lot more upscale. The old Optima had a big backseat and so does it's successor. Now head room, little bit of an issue in the old car, seems to be okay now in the redesign. Parents with small kids will appreciate these new latch anchors, you just push them through these plastic doors and find them right back there. The Optima will come with three, four-cylinder engines. Two of them turbocharged. Gas mileage ratings still to be determined but the mileage leader will probably be a tiny 1.6L turbo four, that's all new for this car. Stay tuned for mileage and pricing. We should have that closer to the car's on sale date in late 2015. (car trunk closing)
