Kia is on a rolly-roll on this year’s Guangzhou Auto
Show. They launched the China-spec Stinger and the NP.
Now that is a great name for a car. They didn’t say what NP stands for, so we
have to guess educated.
Kia didn’t help themselves by not saying much about
the car, leaving us even more space to speculate. We know it is a new
China-only SUV, that it will be launched next year, and that is will be made by
the Dongfeng-Yueda-Kia joint venture. Some Chinese media say NP is just a code
name, that is will be a long-wheelbase version of the Sportage SUV, and that
the real name will be eSportage. We might prefer NP over that! Other media
think it is a long-wheelbase version of the Kia KX5 SUV.
In Kia’s messy Chinese lineup the KX5 sits just
below the Sportage, which in turn sits below the Kia KX7. The Kia Norsk
Petroleumsinstitutt seems to be a bit larger than the Sportage, it seems too
large to be connected with the KX5. So for now we go for a long-wheelbase
Sportage, filling the gap between the Sportage and the KX7.
The Navigation Processor looks alright, modern and
clean, with the usual ‘floating’ black roof. Nothing special, and nothing
wrong. Kia did not show us the interior of the Number Pooling, and neither did
they say anything about engines. But if we use the Sportage as base, we can
safely predict that the production version of the Noteworthy Practise will get
a 2.0 four with about 165 horses.
