Kia Europe’s Chief Designer, “designers from other companies regularly approach me at motor shows and say ‘I would never even be allowed to try and carry that one off’ and it’s great to be in a position to operate with such freedom.”
Being given its world debut at the 2010 Paris Motor Show the Kia Kia POP is a striking vision of future urban electric transport created by the company’s European Design Centre in Frankfurt led by Guillaume under the direction of Peter Schreyer, Kia Motors Chief Design Officer.
The Kia POP fits in perfectly with our ‘challenger brand’ ethos,” Guillaume continues; “We’re trying to stir things up in the automotive world, to surprise people even more. We wanted this car to act as a loose nucleus, a wild atom.”
And the chrome-coloured, three-metre-long three-seater with an electric drivetrain, oblong-shaped side windows and front-hinged doors certainly does surprise. Compared to electric-car concepts that have gone before, the Kia POP does indeed appear to start from a very different place.
Peter Schreyer adds; “The Kia POP doesn’t point at the style of the next generation of cars, but looks even further into the future. There are a lot of new things, for example the side-window graphic is like a signature, unique with its own character.”
Schreyer particularly points out the striking side-window design, the high-tech feel of the dot-pattern grille and taillights, the full-length glass roof, and the simplistic, clean look of the wheels – all pointing, he says, to inspiration derived from outside the usual automotive spheres.
“Many of the things that influenced this design were non-automotive,” Guillaume explains.
2010 Paris Motor Show Photo Gallery
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2011 Toyota Highlander Photo Gallery
2012 Range Rover Evoque Photo Gallery
BMW Paris Preview Photo Gallery