Kia Sorento to get bigger footprint for 2016

Kia Motors Corp. said today that the next-generation Sorento crossover will be longer, lower and have more interior space than the outgoing version.

Kia released the first images of the 2016 Sorento today ahead of an unveiling this month in South Korea.

The mid-sized crossover’s new sheet metal borrows the longer hood and wider D-pillars from the Cross GT concept shown in 2013 at the Chicago Auto Show while “evolving” the current Sorento’s sheet metal, according to a statement from Kia’s press office in the United Kingdom.

Up front is a bolder, trucklike iteration of Kia’s “tiger nose” grille.

Kia’s design studio in Namyang, South Korea, led the project with significant input from Kia studios in Germany and Irvine, Calif.

The Sorento is Kia’s third best-selling model in the United States this year behind the Optima and Soul.

Kia extended the Sorento’s wheelbase more than 3 inches to 109.4 inches, stretched its overall length to 188.2 inches from 184.4 inches to add passenger room to all three rows of seating. Kia also shrunk the Sorento’s height by less than an inch to 66.3 inches.

In addition to engineering and design changes, the revamped Sorento will feature “a host of new convenience and safety technologies, as well as enhanced space, driving comfort and handling response,” Lee Soon-nam, Kia’s overseas marketing chief, said in a statement.

After its debut in South Korea, the 2016 Sorento will make its auto show debut in September at the Paris auto show. It is expected to go on sale in the United States in the first quarter of 2015.