With submissions from 5,500 participants from 54 countries this year alone, the Red Dot Award is one of the world’s largest and most prestigious product design competitions. The independent jury assessed each entry against a series of criteria which includes innovation, formal quality and functionality.
The All New Rio sees distinct changes to its profile, offering buyers a bold new design and a modern, efficiently-packaged cabin with the latest infotainment and safety technologies. The longer bonnet and more vertical C-pillar give the new car a more purposeful and aggressive stance, with a driver-orientated dashboard, which provides an innovative and ergonomic design.
Adding up to Rio’s success, two more Kia models, the Optima Sportswagon and the hybrid crossover Niro, have also won this year’s ‘Red Dot Awards’ in their respective categories. The Optima Sportswagon won the competition’s highest ‘Best of the Best’ distinction for ground-breaking design, while the Niro received praise for its attention to detail.
“The design of the three models that have been honoured with the Red Dot Award was the result of a very close collaboration between our design centres in Korea, Germany and the United States. Our global design team has every right to be proud of this new triumph, as it underlines Kia’s high design quality, which is unanimously recognized by experts”, says Peter Schreyer, President and Chief Design Officer of Kia Motors Corporation.
The awards follow on from Kia’s triple iF Design Award win, earlier in the year and add to Kia Motors’ continuing success, as a design trendsetter, having now won an impressive 18 Red Dot Awards since 2009.
