Kia Optima

Contrary to the extrovert styling of the Kia Optima, the interior cabin looks quite simple, but it is far from boring or staid. It is a good mixture of elegance and sportiness, which explains its true intentions of the car offering the best of both the worlds.

The multifunctional steering wheel looks nice with round centre boss and a nice looking silver spoke at the bottom. The simply designed instrument console with a 4.2-inch MID screen in between looks sober as well.

The outward theme for the dashboard looks and feels premium with soft-touch plastics, with a touchscreen infotainment system encased in a trapezoidal housing and a trapezoidal-shaped lower center console housing the array of buttons for automatic climate control. One can sense the layout of the entire dashboard to be much similar to that of the BMW’s sedans, which though is not a bad thing at all.

The Kia Optima is loaded with top of the line kit, including memory function for rearview mirrors and front seats, dual-zone automatic climate control, sunroof, powered and heated front seats, Harman Kardon music system with 10 speakers, push-button start with keyless entry, auto cruise control, rear door sunshade, and 60:40 split rear seats, etc.

The Kia Optima is quite a looker, for the sedan looks big and stylish, with an essence of a coupe towards the rear. This is one of the best designs to come out of the house of this Korean manufacturer.

The Kia Optima too wears the company’s familiar tiger-nose grille, albeit in a sleeker form and with vertical chrome slats within it. The sweptback headlamps adjacent to this grille do come with dual LED projector bulbs as well as daytime running LEDs. What brings attention here is the very sleek and small set of LED fog lamps, which do standout here.

The side profile of the Kia Optima seeks a slight inspiration from the mighty Stinger GT, with a unique design for the C-pillar as well as super sporty alloy wheels. However, there is no other prominent character line here which can be specially mentioned. The very long and slightly rounded on the edges LED tail lamp do make the rear look wide and large.

The amalgamation of Multi-point fuel injection (MPI) and continuously variable valve timing (VCCL) in the 2.0-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine allows it to deliver a decent mileage of 13.2 km/l. VCCL equipped in the engine, varies the height of valve opening according to the engine conditions, thus resulting in improved fuel economy and mileage.

The Kia Optima not only is sporty in the way it looks, but also in the way it behaves on the tarmac. With what Kia calls as a sport-tuned suspension, the Kia Optima offers a tautness in its steering and suspension balance, which surely is engineered keeping enthusiastic drivers in mind.

While the Kia Optima is sold with a variety of engine options overseas, the one sold in Malaysia comes with a single powertrain option of a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine. Coupled with a 6-speed torque converter, the engine produces a peak power output of 245 PS.

For a premium sedan, the Kia Optima is equipped with all the range-topping features like front, side and curtain airbags, ABS with EBD and Brake Assist, electronic stability control, traction control, front and rear parking sensors, reverse camera, blind spot collision warning, lane change assist, driver attention warning, forward collision warning with pedestrian detection and around view monitor.

The Kia Optima surely feels athletic and a current-generation car, whatever aspect of it you take into consideration. With a fastback styling, which looks super sleek and modern, sophisticated interior cabin design and equally sophisticated features and a powertrain and chassis balance which is a delight for the driving enthusiast, it ticks many right boxes.