Hyundai Malaysia officially teases ‘upcoming’ Kona

After some spyshots of the Hyundai Kona were seen on the roads around Ara Damansara, where Hyundai-Sime Darby Motors (HSDM) is located, the brand’s Malaysian distributor has officially released a teaser post on its Facebook page. “A glance of the ‘upcoming’ interior. You Drive it. You Define it,” the post reads.

That upcoming interior belongs to the Kona, an easy spot thanks to the crossover’s body-coloured rings around the air con vents, gear lever and push start button. The pics below show the Kona in lime green and black; the former clearly displaying the two-tone body with black upper.

Previewed by HSDM at the KL International Motor Show (KLIMS) 2018, the Kona was initially planned for a Q2 2019 introduction, but there have been some delays, and the unprecedented pandemic that hit the world this year certainly didn’t help to speed things up. But they appear to be ready now, and the Kona is just around the corner.

Billed as the compact SUV for millennials, the Kona sits below the Hyundai Tucson and will attempt to tempt buyers away from the Honda HR-V, Mazda CX-3 and Toyota C-HR. It certainly looks bold, with slit-like LED daytime running lights sitting separately above the main beams, which flank the corporate Cascading Grille. Fog lamps on a narrow lower intake make it three tiers of grilles and lights.

The rear adopts the same tiered layout for the lamps. The Kona wears prominent “body armour” around the front and rear lamps, integrated with the wheel arches. It looks like nothing else on our roads and that’s a good thing.

The Kona is 4,165 mm long and 1,800 mm wide; which makes it 129 mm shorter than a Honda HR-V, but 28 mm wider. Its roof is also 55 lower to the ground than the Honda, which gives the Korean a good stance. The wheelbase is 2,600 mm, which is just 10 mm short of the Honda, the sales and space champ of the B-SUV class.

The Kona is available with a couple of engines globally, and among them are a 2.0 litre MPI, 1.0 litre T-GDI three-cylinder and a 1.6 litre Gamma T-GDI. The latter – with 177 PS, 265 Nm of torque and a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox – was the one previewed at KLIMS. The turbo variant is good for 0-100 km/h in 7.9 seconds and a top speed of 205 km/h. There’s also a Kona Electric full EV version of the crossover.

Available equipment from the global catalogue include a head-up display (HUD) with navigation, a premium sound system by Krell, wireless charging and Hyundai’s full suite of active safety and driver assist systems, as seen in our market’s Ioniq.

Will the Kona be CKD locally assembled or CBU imported? Which engine will it carry? An attractively priced CKD with the T-GDI would be an interesting proposition next to its NA-powered Japanese rivals. What do you think?

GALLERY: Hyundai Kona 1.6 Turbo at KLIMS