Kia Motors’ K5 has always been reputed in the market for its stylish design since the release of the first generation model. Featuring sleek and wide headlamps and radiator grilles as well as the character line and silhouette oozing with dynamism, the model showcased a variety of fresh attempts in midsize auto design―all the while ensuring high quality. K5’s fresh design was praised globally and in turn brought a wave of changes to the conservative global midsize auto market. And now, the third generation K5 is inheriting the legacy of its predecessors, vowing to continue the innovation in design. Expectations, naturally, are high. We interviewed the members of KIA Exterior Design Team 2 to hear how the new K5 lives up to the high standards the market has come to hold on the model.
The new K5 combines the line’s signature design features with bold new attempts
Q. The name K5 has come to represent Kia’s design innovation. Given the meaning and the identity bestowed upon the name, I’m sure there was a lot of pressure.
Sungwook Kim, Senior Designer: K5 is one of the flagship models of Kia, which as a whole has come to value ‘design management’ as a maxim. The first-gen K5 was especially influential design-wise, even affecting sedans from different makers. Naturally, designing the successor to that influential a model came with the due psychological burden. How do we come close to the market evaluation of the previous generation? I think this was why the second-gen K5 could not change the design too much. But the new K5 seeks to transcend the old, while keeping the signature elements that made it so great. We wanted it to look different from the old style. It was a challenge, really, to get a fresh looking design that is yet readily identifiable.
The headlamps and grille were blended into a sensuous curve. Cool hydrofoil-styled bumper design emphasizes volume, and the bonnet parting line was removed to ensure an uncluttered appearance
Senior Designer Kim Sungwook explains the design of the headlamp
Hakyung Yeom, Designer: The biggest change from the old model is the evolution of the “tiger nose.” If you look closely, you can see that the front used chrome very sparingly. The past models had chrome molding connecting the headlamps to the edges of the radiator grille, but the new model blends the two into a natural, voluminous curve. We also extended the bonnet a bit, so as to remove the parting line between it and the bumper. Given that the front of the car already had lots of interesting design elements―various character lines and the bumper styled like hydrofoil (wing-like lifting surfaces attached under boats)―we felt the need to simplify elsewhere. Doing so also came with the advantage of helping focus the viewers’ attention on the daytime running light (DRL). All in all, we felt we could safeguard the K5’s sporty image despite lots of attempts at cool design features.
Fastback style is one of the new K5’s distinguishing points
Q. Market trends are changing for midsize sedans; foreign competitor models are also trying to be sporty now. How does the K5 differentiate itself from against this trend?
Kyuhwan Kim, Designer: It’s fairly common practice for midsize sedan makers to sell slightly different models fit the various markets’ respective tastes. Volkswagen Passat and the old Honda Accord are some examples of this. But K5 sells only one model to all markets, which meant that we had to negotiate the various demands of all global consumers while keeping up with the changing market trends.
Market preferences in design have been evolving recently, and our main foreign competitors were unveiling styles close to coupes. We felt the need to develop an even more appealing, refined form. To that end, we received recurring feedback from our domestic and international sales divisions and reflected it to our development stage. The more we repeated this cycle, the more complete the design became.
Wrap-around chrome molding combines the rear deck into one and completes the vehicle’s sleek, dynamic feel
Seungtea Kim, Senior Designer: The theme of K5’s design is in “combining.” The long rear lamp links the car’s left and right; the wrap-around chrome molding combines the rear deck. The resulting sleek and dynamic image combines with the intense details to produce, in my confident belief, a design that can compete with that of any other car. The fastback style, solid body volume, vivid headlamps, voluminous bumper, cool character lines, the voluptuous bumper… there is a lot to love here.
Daylight running light (DRL) had as its inspiration a pulsating graph on a heart rate monitor. The resulting design epitomizes blazing speed
Q. The shapes of the headlamp and the DRL is quite unique. Where did you get the inspiration from?
Sungwook Kim: the headlamps are an emblem of the brand’s design objective and identity. The K5’s headlamp is a sleek and agile one, designed to feel high-tech. The process of development had many obstacles. First, the case was so small that a normal halogen lamp wouldn’t fit; we had to substitute it with smaller LED lamp. Pricier, but we couldn’t give up on what we felt was a core design feature. Inspiration for DRL came from the heart rate monitor―you know, the pulse going up and down on an electric monitor? We visually expressed the immediacy of the speeding pulses into the DRL. Then came the difficult process of adjusting the details to ensure a fit with the other elements. Particularly difficult was the preparation for mass production, because we feared that the unique shape of the headlamp may cause issues in the process. But the engineers of the lamps actively helped us overcome the hurdles to reach the actual mass production.
Taillights were designed as a dotted line to give an added sense of speed
Q. The New K5 stands out for its visual balance. Specifically which changes are responsible for this feel?
Sungwook Kim: It is known that the longer the dash-to-axle (the distance from the front wheel to the steering wheel), the more elegant and dynamic the lateral proportions feel. But front-wheel drive cars have structural limitations that make it very difficult to implement this such a layout. The new K5, though, uses a third-generation platform that reduces the front overhang by 20 mm and elongates the dash-to-axle. In other words, it became visually more harmonious and elegant.
The bonnet area expanded while the rear deck area shrunk, resulting in a more dynamic image
Seungtea Kim: At the same time, the length and the wheelbase were increased by 50 mm and 45 mm, respectively, and with the height becoming 20 mm lower, the sides now give a much more stable impression. In addition, the cowl point (the border between the bonnet and the windshield) was pulled back 40 mm to emphasize dynamism. In short, the bonnet area visually expanded, while the rear area visually contracted, resulting in a greater sense of speed in the design. For reference, if the front overhang is short, the car may look really dull when viewed from above. So we trimmed the headlamps diagonally to feel dynamic regardless of the angle of view. This is why the new K5 looks more dynamic.
The headlamps and the front fender fit perfectly without error
Every effort was given to ensure quality―for even minor parts like tail lamp connections
Q. What do you like the most about the new K5 as the model’s exterior designer?
Sungwook Kim: New attempts always entail challenges. It was the same with design: pointy headlamp protruding into the front fender, molding the C-pillar surface, and wrap-around chrome molding were all new attempts that were met with obstacles like collision law standards and challenges in press molding and injection. But all these obstacles, we could overcome with the help from the other departments and engineers. We also worked hard to improve small details that other makers typically don’t care about. In the end, all the elements, including the rear lamps that extend to the sides, the unique shape of the bumper, the rich volume of the wheel arches, fell into one heck of a harmony. We are very happy about the design turnout.
Exterior designers who participated in the new K5’s exterior design. From left: Senior Designer Seungtea Kim, Designer Kyuhwan Kim, Senior Designer Sungwook Kim, Designer Hakyung Yeom
The new K5 is boasting a strong presence amidst the changing trends in the mid-size sedan market. Evolved tiger nose, unconventional headlamps, dynamic fastback style, finely trimmed details, and harmonious and elegant proportions all seem good reasons for the attention the model will likely command. We hope that the third-generation K5 will once again raise the global standard of midsize sedans as the preceding generations have.
