Someone Caught the Kia Telluride Uncovered and it Looks Nothing Like the Concept

TopSpeed

By Kirby Garlitos

Published Sep 8, 2018

It still looks good, but not as good as the concept version

An uncovered prototype of the Kia Telluride was spotted chilling in the wild, giving us our first look at the full-sized SUV without any swirly camo covering it. There’s only one picture of the SUV, so it’s hard to make out other sections of the ride. But, the front section is unmistakable. That’s the Kia Telluride, and it looks nothing like its concept counterpart.

It’s hard, maybe even impossible, to expect a concept-based production model to stay true to the concept model. That appears to be the case with the Kia Telluride. It’s disappointing on some levels but expected in others. The Instagram account, Saudi_shift posted an image of the undisguised Telluride, and the first thing we noticed is how it looks like a mashup between the Telluride Concept, the GMC Yukon, and, well, the Cadillac Escalade.

That’s not to say that the production Telluride doesn’t have a look of its own. It does. The hood isn’t as long as the one on the concept, and while that’s disappointing in some regard — the concept’s long hood gave it vexing appearance — it’s not as significant an omission as some people might think.

The profile of the SUV’s bumper is different, too, compared to the concept. It’s hard to make out because of the image’s low quality, but that black strip just below the grille looks out-of-place. Maybe it’s a secondary grille; maybe it’s just a black panel. Either way, it would’ve probably been better if Kia didn’t add that piece on the production model.

The rest of the SUV can’t be seen without squinting, so we’re not going to bother. It’s admittedly not what we expected — we thought Kia would give the Telluride a more upscale appearance — but it’s also possible that this uncovered prototype isn’t the final production version. Even if its, maybe it’s a lower trim version. That could open the SUV to more variety with its more upscale trims.

Kia has resisted mentioning the production Telluride’s powertrain options. We do know that the concept came with a transverse-mounted 3.5-liter V-6 and an electric motor that produced a combined output of 400 horsepower. The production version should get something similar as one of many powertrain options, but that’s still all up to Kia. Hopefully, the apple doesn’t fall far from that tree.

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