Kia showcased two Concepts based on the Seltos – X-Line Trail and X-Line Urban – at the LA Motor Show and we think this is the best the Seltos could ever get.
The Kia Seltos has been an amazing hit in the India market. Its a great car in terms of comfort and drivability but its styling has to be one of the biggest reasons for it to stand out in a sea of SUVs. Well, just when we thought the Seltos couldn’t get any better in terms of styling, Kia rather took us by surprise. Kia unveiled the US-spec Seltos at the 2019 LA Motor Show and along with that, Kia showcased the Seltos X-Line Concept – the Seltos X-Line Trail Attack Concept and X-Line Urban Concept – and honestly, we can’t stop drooling over them. If you thought that the Seltos was still quite tame, this is perhaps the Seltos you had been waiting for. Let’s look at them in a little more detail.
Kia Seltos X-Line Trail Concept
The standard Seltos looks like a sophisticate urban SUV but if you ever intend to take your Seltos off-road, this might just be the version for you. The Kia Seltos X-Line Trail Concept comes painted in a two-tone paint scheme that replicates the stirring desert sunset. There are eight Hella auxiliary lights mounted on the front bumper and roof and that should provide you illumination for miles on end. There’s also a custom fabricated roof rack.
This is an of-road focused variant and it comes with a 2-inch lift kit that gives it a ground clearance of 233mm. It also gets off-road tyres with custom painted alloy wheels and rugged body cladding all around to give it a more purposeful stance. It is powered by a 1.6-litre T-GDI engine that develops 177PS and 265Nm and is mated to a 7-speed DCT. There’s also an electronic AWD system with a differential lock and a even a winch, should situations become really tricky. Plenty of off-roading hardware that is.
Kia Seltos X-Line Urban Concept
The X-Line Urban Concept is a little less rugged and primarily for use in the city streets. It comes finished in a custom slate gray paint job along with a black roof that mimics the glass and steel skyscrapers in New York. That said, the X-Line Urban Concept still carries four Hella auxiliary lights on the roof, 2-inch lift kit, custom paint alloy wheels and the powerplant from the Trail Concept SUV.
The custom hood complete with integrated intake is however exclusive to the Urban Concept. Like the Trail concept, the Urban Concept also gets an electronically controlled AWD with torque vectoring system and the powerplant also remains the same. Although both the concepts came with heavily tinted windows, the interiors of both the cars remain similar to the standard Seltos.
Both these concepts are however one-offs and there will be no production version of either of these SUVs. That said, if you have been intending to kit up your Seltos, these two SUVs should give you a great idea on how you could advance with your customization.
Also Read : List Of Problems That Are Being Faced By Kia Seltos Owners
US-Spec Kia Seltos
Kia also showcased the US-spec Seltos at the LA Motor Show and it features quite a few differences from the India-spec model. Visually, both cars are almost similar but the US-Spec car gets more rugged bumpers on both ends and larger dual-tone 18-inch alloy wheels. On the inside, the US-spec Seltos gets a floating touchscreen infotainment system instead of the one in India which comes integrated with instrument cluster. The rest of the cabin is identical.
Also Read : Kia Sub-Compact SUV Codenamed QYI Spotted Testing in India!
The bigger differences are in the mechanical front. The US-spec Seltos is powered by a 2.0L, naturally aspirated petrol engine with 150 bhp. There’s a more powerful version on offer too and it gets a 1.6-litre turbo petrol unit which churns out 174 bhp and there’s a 7-speed dual clutch transmission available with this trim. It also gets an all-wheel drive system with a center locking differential that splits power equally between the front and rear wheels but that is available as an option. If not anything else, we really wish that Kia brings the AWD system to the India-spec Seltos at least.
