Finally, after what seems like an eon of teasing, Kia has pulled the lurid vinyl wraps off the Tasman, the brand’s first entry into the piranha-infested waters of the compact pick-up truck market. Kia and their sister brand Hyundai have latterly been gaining a lot of praise from some quarters for their current designs, so the world has been waiting to see exactly how they would approach a new, and potentially very lucrative segment.
It’s worth remembering that the pickup truck, as much as it defines the US market, is not a uniquely American proposition. We’ve been enjoying Mitsubishi L200s, Ford Rangers and VW Amaroks in the UK for a couple of decades now, and the Toyota Hilux for even longer. American full-sizers do occasionally make their way on British shores as well via private import or specialist dealers. Farmers love their combination of capability, performance and comfort; this combination of attributes is not available in anything else. Regarding compact trucks, a quirk in UK tax regulations meant small one-person businesses could buy a higher trim Ranger Wildtrak and use it as a personal vehicle, something that Ford UK, ever with their eye on the ball, was happy to exploit. Although that tax loophole has now been closed, the fancy compact pickup has remained popular with the sort of people who decorate their houses with stone bulldogs on the outside and union jack cushions on the inside.
It’s a similar story in the upside-down colonies. The traditional car-based Aussie ute died when Holden was killed, so consequently American full sizers have exploded in popularity. Toyota is soft-launching the Tundra to fleet customers ahead of an official rollout. Along with the usual compact-sized suspects from Ford, VW, Toyota and now the Chinese OEMs, it’s a bloodbath down there. All this is a roundabout way of saying the worldwide compact pickup market is vast, and the various marques have consolidated their offerings. Essentially the same trucks are available across all non-North American markets, so it’s no surprise that Kia, currently enjoying their time in the sun, wants to get involved.
What Exactly Is A Kia?
As a car designer, it’s always a fun and useful thought exercise to imagine a brand coming up with something they don’t currently make. For car design students it’s a useful jumping-off point for a project, and as an educator it tells me a lot about how well a student understands a brand’s design language, identity and the market.
For example, when I was a student, a compact Fiesta-sized baby Jaguar was an old chestnut that kept popping up because everyone was angling for a job a JLR. I never thought much of the merits of that idea, because fifteen years ago Jaguar was an ostensibly premium brand attempting to be a British BMW. You have to consider what fits. When I studied at the RCA, my tutor J Mays told me to look for the gaps in an OEMs range – what don’t they currently make that they could?
Back then the idea of a Ferrari, Rolls Royce or Aston Martin SUV would have seen me laughed out of the studio, but the market got too lucrative for them to ignore. How successful these cars are from a design point of view is a discussion for another time, but there’s no arguing with what they bring to the bottom line. For Kia, the issue is slightly different.
For an OEM with a strong brand and a clear visual identity it’s easier to transpose those characteristics onto a new type of vehicle you don’t currently build. With Kia, it’s a bit tricky, because what exactly is a Kia? Some willfully different for the sake of being different detailing aside, taken individually their cars are mostly pretty good, although I really cannot get on with the Z shape of the lights on the K5, nor the down-turned mouth rear lighting on the EV6. But taken one by one on their own terms, they are not bad at all.
The problem comes when you look at the entire range. It’s hard to draw a consistent through-line across all their cars. There’s no underlying theme joining them all together. It seems like nothing really unites them visually. Now, this is not by and of itself necessarily a problem. I’ve talked before about how this allows mainstream OEMs a great deal of freedom to make compelling-looking cars without having to adhere to a family look. The problem comes when you do move into a totally new segment; then you’ve not got brand recognition to fall back on – nothing to tell consumers that “this new pickup is a Kia.” The way to avoid this trap is to create something really compelling that’s impossible to ignore. Unfortunately for Kia, they’ve made something that’s impossible to ignore for all the wrong reasons. The Tasman is hideous.
Eugene Levy Wants His Eyebrows Back
The first thing your eyes are drawn to, because you simply cannot avoid them, are the totally incongruous fender flares. Standing proud like Eugene Levy’s eyebrows, these oversized slabs of black polypropylene look like they’re from a completely different truck. Because they extend too far forwards and backward in the longitudinal axis, they don’t fit the shape of the wheel arch at all. Neither do they wrap around the entire opening, hampering their ability to protect the painted sheet metal. Look at how a Defender uses its cladding if you want to see this done properly.
According to our friends over at Motor1, Kia Australia CEO Damien Meredith knows the fender flares are contentious:
“It’s very good news. I can assure you that accessory [fender flare] will be there at launch.” What I like to call the “Tom Selleck mustache” will be optionally swapped out in favor of extended fender flares surrounding the entire wheel arch.
Motor1 goes on to say that it will also be possible to option them in body color. I think the effect is going to be like attempting to cover a particularly angry spot on your face with one of those flesh colored make-up sticks. This all suggests that after the body in white had been signed off someone, somewhere in the studio found their glasses and realized an almighty clanger had been dropped, and they had to scramble to come up with last-minute solution fixes. If you think I’m talking out of my ass, look at the short cab in black with the drop side (tabletop for our resident Australians) bed. Because it instantly banishes half the fender flares and camouflages the remainder against the bodywork, it instantly looks 100% better. Well 50%.
Whales And Planes
Moving around to the front, bloody hell. Oy vey. Insert your choice of hands-in-the-air expression here. I think the Kia exterior team must have had either a Beluga whale or Beluga Airbus, or possibly both on their mood board. How else to explain the Tasman’s oversized grill surround which protrudes into the air like a giant metal forehead, neglecting to bring the headlights or radiator grill itself along with it for company? Or indeed visual balance. Ripped straight from the Kia Global Tasman press release:
“The Kia design team deliberately shunned the familiar form language that has dominated the pickup genre for decades. This fresh approach to aesthetics strips away the unnecessary to begin with a basic, honest form that highlights the vehicle’s sense of solid power through simple yet functional elements, without relying on the oversized styling that has come to dominate the pickup segment.”
Now it’s no surprise that from a design point of view the embutchification of pickup trucks has been an ongoing problem ever since Dodge debuted the Big Rig second generation Ram way back in 1993.
Since then it’s been a chrome-plated arms race in the manner of ‘Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades’ as OEMs try to out do each other to make the most aggressive-looking trucks known to man, subtlety, nuance, and small children be damned.
Kia’s word salad appears to say they are deliberately attempting to not do that, but they didn’t exactly not do it either. In a way, by integrating the headlights into the fender flares they designed themselves into a corner – forcing the lights to be too small in comparison to the height of the hood and consequently the grill surround. A kind interpretation would be that it references the Dodge Power Wagon. But I’m not being kind so I’m going to say it suggests the Kia Retona, an abysmally cross-eyed device from the late eighties that was a civilian version of the K131 Jeep that was foisted on an unsuspecting South Korean military. Everything at the front is just out of proportion – like a particularly derpy sea creature from the bottom of the Mariana Trench whose features are too small for its face. Yikes. Chuck it back.
The Quartic Steering Wheel Is Back, Baby!
Opening the door and stepping inside the situation gets better. It’s not Tacoma, Defender or Wrangler levels of rugged, but it’s cohesive and pleasant enough, even if there’s a paucity of hard controls. Considering the Tasman is meant to be a working vehicle as well as a lifestyle one, this is curious. No amount of knurling on the door handles is going to make up for a lack of chunky switches that can be used with gloved hands on the worksite. Also, the steering wheel is giving me British Leyland flashbacks, as it appears to yoinked straight out of an Austin Allegro. The center console has a natty fold-out table, but like the under-seat storage, this is something we’ve seen before. It does all feel tilted toward the lifestyle part of the brief though, so it will be interesting to see what the more basic, harder-wearing commercial versions are going to look like.
Remember what I was saying about Kia not having a consistent visual identity? That’s why KIA is stamped on the tailgate in letters so large they can be seen from the International Space Station. The view from the rear is much more successful than the front, but then again there are fewer ingredients to fuck up. If it all aligns and makes sense and you don’t try to add features that are not necessary you’re golden. Given their propensity for mangled, messy surfacing on other cars in their range Kia has surprisingly not given in to that temptation here. There are corner steps in the rear bumpers, but again this is something cribbed from other pickups.
How Did They Manage To Mess Up The Brief?
I’ve been following the online discourse on the Tasman since it was revealed this morning, and the consensus to put it mildly is one of abject horror. A sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly. [Ed Note: I actually love it, but I also love the Australia-only Jeep CJ-10 pickup from the 1980s -DT]. The whole thing is just too stodgy, too blocky, and too upright. You don’t want a pickup to look sporty and dynamic because that would be stupid, but angling the sides a bit above the beltline to give the cursed thing some tumblehome would help a lot without pinching any head and shoulder room. Likewise raking the rear windshield forward just a couple of degrees would loosen the whole thing up, and make it look less brutal.
Kia can and has made some genuinely terrific-looking cars in the past. I always thought the Optima was a solidly handsome thing, and the Stinger was one or two overwrought details (the tail lamps wrapping in line down the rear fender always bothered me) away from looking really nice. The Sportage, Telluride and Carnival are pretty good for what they are. They are capable of good design when they try.
What they’ve served up this time is a sort of NPC compact truck. The Tasman doesn’t have the reputation of a Hilux, or the market ubiquity of a Ranger. For a fickle and competitive sector, you need a compelling-looking, cohesive design. Instead, the Tasman looks like a truck built out of parts from several other trucks, made from Lego by someone being given a description over the telephone. The stance is bad, the fender extensions are misguided and the whole thing is just a horrible inconsistent mess.
On some fundamental level, pickup trucks are just cool. Or at least, they should be. It comes with the territory. It’s a bit like designing sports cars or muscle cars – a dream assignment. I used to love drawing pickup truck versions of the [redacted] when I was in the studio. You’ve got to try really hard to fuck it up. But that’s what Kia has managed to do. The Tasman is the sum of several bad parts and somehow manages to be less than all of them.
Unless otherwise stated, all images courtesy of Kia
Top graphic: Eugene Levy in Schitt’s Creek
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It looks slightly better in the dark slate grey color because the black plastic bits blend in a little bit. That beige one is jarring to say the least. We all know there’s no accounting for taste so these things will sell, I’ll bet.
I don’t know. The pick up market is pretty conservative in its tastes. And this, like the Cybertruck is way outside the norm.
I dislike KIA’s current design direction. It’s like they’re trying too hard to stand out and establish a distinct design language. The EV6 is over-designed with bad detailing, the EV9 is …just too much while the Sportage a complete eyesore. Compare this to the first gen Sportage, Stinger, the Stonic or the C’eed, all pretty handsome, but I guess a bit generic. It’s like they deliberately made the Tasman ugly to make it stand out.
That is seriously fugly. Inside and out. Though I do like the trayback.
They poached this from my elementary notebook. My poor mother never knew the pot of gold she had in her basement all this time…
Pickups now live in a post-CT world, and old styling ideas no longer matter.
The next Ridgeline is going to be a giant functional gravy boat. Why not.
New ideas are great. But they have to look good. This and the Cybertruck do not.
This will at least be functional as a proper pickup truck, unlike the Cybertruck.
But yeah, it’s fugly.
I can’t wait for BMW to release a one door convertible ‘pickup truck’ with no cargo area. I hope it gets M badges.
You mock, but I remember in the mid-to-late nineties there were strong rumors BMW were going to build a pick up. It was on the cover of C&D I think.
The market is ready. Now is the time, BMW!
It feels surprisingly jeep gladiator to me. I suspect if there is a better option for the fender flairs these will sell just fine. If the value proposition is typical KIA/Hyundai good they will sell just fine anyway (explody motors and ease of stealing notwithstanding).
ps. I had no idea ‘notwithstanding’ was one word and not two until just now. The weirdness of the english language never ceases to amaze/amuse me.
I was going to say it looks like a Jeep Patriot Sport Trac.
Their logo doesn’t even say KIA. It says KИ. It makes my eye twitch.
I’m all for new, fresh designs and all, but I really have to wonder if some manufacturers are just trolling us sometimes.
I see it as those two letters of the Cyrillic alphabet where I think it would be pronounced like “key”
Tilt your head to the right and it reads IAN
“option them in body color”
Insert Cesar Romero Joker pic here….
Also, kudos on dropping The Onion five blade reference.
This, exactly. It looks like something I would be hiding behind in a circa 2010 first person shooter.
Both Kia and Hyundai’s design language choices baffle me lately. Each time it seems they have a unifying trend, something comes out and just flips it.
Like with Hyundai’s oragami cues. Love them or hate them, it started to consistently show across the lineup. Then, jk, here comes the Ioniq 5 looking all different. Which we will follow up with the Ioniq 6 which looks nothing like the 5. Then the Santa Fe says “but what if box” and I’m confused what Hyundai’s design language is now…..
Those wheel arches really took me a few minutes to wrap my head around. I almost felt like I just wasn’t seeing the photo correctly. It seems so common for trucks to have squared off wheel arches which always seem to cause dissonance with the rest of the design. Is the thought that round wheel arches aren’t tough enough looking? Stop putting a round peg in a square hole. Make those eyebrows half as large and then have them follow the entire arch and we may be getting somewhere. I would also increase the size of the headlights by a factor of 2 and then see how to modify the rest of the front to make it a cohesive shape. The rear doesn’t look too bad, so I wouldn’t change much if anything. The rear passenger windows need less of the hofmeister kink/ rake than is present here it makes the cab look smaller than it is and has less presence. I agree that the rear window needs to have a bit of angle toward the windshield. But yeah overall this is a disjointed mess of a design.
I hate weird-shaped wheel arches so much. Wheels are round, accept it. They look just as bad on the Cybertruck and most of GMs trucks.
2014 K2XX Silverados were the worst transgressors for square wheel arches.
YES. THANK YOU. Wheels are round. Stop trying to be clever with your non-round “arches.” It’s design for design’s sake and comes across and such a try-hard.
It’s ugly, no denying it. I don’t hate the trayback-and-steelies version though. That one is at least both functional AND ugly enough that here’s be no shame in beating the hell out of it at a jobsite.
Hey DT, feel like coming to Oklahkma to pick up a cool new ride?
https://www.facebook.com/share/hAWQJrRY2YY1n7nM/
Don’t encourage him (I have posted it to the Slack).
Adrian: Don’t encourage him. Let me encourage him
That grill
As if a designer dearly in love with their Soul saw a Rivian for the first time through a haze of magic mushrooms, then, much later, hastily penned the front end before passing out in a pool of sick
I agree this thing is not exactly pleasant looking.
But also, Adrian is absolutely killing it this week – the drives in the Integrale and the Sera and now this analysis of why the Tasman looks so bad. Fantastic stuff!
Thank you for your kind words.
Well, Lexus (and Toyota) has the Predator mouth.., so Kia wanted to “two up” them with giant Alien (like in the movie) metal forehead and Hitler mustaches on the side (or Tom Seleck if we’re being nice, but we aren’t), for that sinister look.
Knurled interior door handles are cool, if they are metal. Fake if they are plastic.
Wow, and I thought the new Tacoma was ugly! I DO like the look of the interior there, they definitely have Toyota beat there, and in a good way. Some say the interior of the Tacoma is “rugged”, I say cheap & plasticky.
The dropside looks great, it would be really cool to have that option in the US.
I think after one or two model years Kia will realize the looks are a fail, then do a quick but drastic redesign. I think it can be cleaned up without having to redo the basic structure, personally I prefer a more upright windshield, so I think the cab is fine.
The one truly disappointing aspect of my Allegro is that it’s a later car with a round steering wheel.
I think early SD1s had a squared off steering wheel as well.
True but retrofitting either type just wouldn’t be the same.
As a stickler for originality I agree.
I saw it last night and still haven’t gotten past those allergic reactions above the wheel arches to take in the rest of the 360° of design horror. But it looked like there’s some kind of door on the rear arch, maybe (there’s a cut line in the photo here and I thought I even saw a keyhole on one last night), and that along with the quote above referring to it as an “accessory” gives me the slightest hope that it may be a port or dealer option like mud flaps and oversized door guards, so maybe they won’t be included on every example.
I saw that but the press images don’t show anything. On the left hand side I think it might be the fuel filler cap.There’s only one image of the right hand side (if you follow the press release link you can see all the released images) but it looks like it may be a storage compartment because there are two shutlines space much further apart.
I saw the release last night and a column of maybe 40 images, but it was late and I wasn’t about to risk my blood sugar crashing due to the intense vomiting I would risk.
I was thinking it could be a storage compartment too, although it’s hard to imagine what anyone would put in it. Maybe, mercifully, there will be an easily unfurled and installed soft cover that will hide the thing when it’s not moving.
Agreed dark prince, except your take on the front. I think the rounded beluga look is incredibly fresh and cool, vintage sci-fi kinda, and definitely leaning on a 60’s GAZ truck. The overall Tasmanian effect is indeed fussy, but I give them points for trying. I read somewhere that they out-aztek’d the aztek, but don’t y’all love that duckling?
Also, post Cybertruck which *The Autopian Internet Publication* thinks it’s “cool” and a “miracle”, who are we to say what’s ogle, yea?
Some people here may consider the Cybertruck cool. I however consider it an abomination and have said so many times in interviews with FastCo and Reuters (but funnily enough I’ve not gotten the opportunity here!).
Saw one in a brown wrap last week. Looked noticeably better. Rather like having a clean scalpel stuck in my eye as opposed to a rusty saw blade.
-or maybe that’s just my nostalgia for 70s brown trucks
I’m pretty sure that’s just DT. Everyone else at least demurs on saying how ugly it really is, if not saying it outright. I definitely don’t buy that The Autopian at large considers it cool or a miracle.
It’s more likely that DT simply doesn’t have eyes. That would explain his fixation on the i3, too.
And even DT was more impressed with its uncompromising nature than with its looks.
He’s an engineer, not an aesthete.
That’ll change now that he’s got a fiancé.
No that just means he’ll shower and wear clean underwear everyday. And can’t wash car parts in the dishwasher.
Touché
This thing kind of looks like some abomination concoction of an FJ Cruiser, Tacoma and some sort of Kia maybe EV9? The interior is nice though hah
The interior is, fine? It’s very much in line with the current fascination for screens and lack of tactile controls. But it’s very generic. Opportunity missed I think.
The dropside flat bed looks awesome. Why do we not get those on mid/full size trucks here. I love the look of something like a Land Cruiser truck but beyond looks the normal bed sides are getting too tall, unless you’re 6’10 it’s really hard to reach in.
Surely there’s some company that builds the dropside over there?
We have a huge number of companies that make them to order, with all kinds of options like under-tray drawers, ladder racks and many other options to suit the trade or camping markets
I have no doubt there are aftermarket options but why not from factory?
Yikes. Just yikes. I thought I’d be glad for someone to try something new in regards to modern standard pickup face, but this is… not the new I wanted.
“I wish someone would try a really fresh pickup design.”
*monkia paw curls*
Certainly an exercise in “be careful what you wish for”.
Me, seeing the articles about this disaster yesterday: god that’s hideous
*sees uncle Adrian’s article, spits out lunch*
HONEY GUESS WHAT? ADRIAN AGREES WITH ME! THE NEW KIA TASMAN IS AN ABOMINATION”
No, you agree with my correct professional opinion.
Those are the best kinds of opinions for sure.
This makes the Rezvani 6×6 Military look cohesive