Surprisingly, the rendered Kia Seltos pickup truck does not look out of place, and could work well as a compact lifestyle pickup truck in the foreign markets
The Seltos mid-size SUV marked Kia Motors’ entry into the Indian market, and has also been a major reason for the Korean carmaker’s immense success in the country so far. As of now, the Seltos is one of the highest-selling SUVs in the Indian market, and Kia has already managed to sell over 97,000 units of the said car in the country in just 11 months since it was launched back in August last year.
Kia offers the Seltos in a five-seat format only, and there seem to be no plans for the introduction of any other body format for now. However, Kleber Silva has imagined a pickup truck based on the Kia Seltos SUV. While a Seltos pickup truck is highly unlikely to happen anytime soon, this rendering looks pretty enticing to be fair.
The front-end of the Seltos has been carried over to this pickup truck as well. The side profile is also largely similar up to the rear window. The pickup truck gets a new C-pillar, as well as a loading bay of course. The rear-end design including the tail lamps, bumper with dual-tip faux exhausts, skid plate and rear reflectors are all same.
Apart from the loading bay, the pickup truck also features functional roof rails, as against the non-functional units seen on the Seltos SUV. A high-mounted stop light can also be seen mounted on the roof of the pickup truck. As of now, Kia Motors has no pickup truck, even its international line-up.
However, its parent company Hyundai is currently working is already working on an urban pickup truck named ‘Santa Cruz’. The unibody crossover-type truck will likely be built on the same platform as the Hyundai Tucson, and the official production date for the said offering has been set for some time in 2021.
Since the two carmakers share a range of platforms and powertrains, it would be no surprise if Kia decides to build its own pickup truck in the near future. While we would love to see this Kia Seltos pickup truck turn into reality, the demand for lifestyle pickup trucks is still bare minimum in the Indian market.