Visually, the Telluride’s chunky body and big chrome schnoz stir up memories of Ford Excursions; that’s on purpose. Kia describes the Telluride as an SUV, not a crossover. It may be based on the Sorento, but it’s 4.4 inches taller, 4.7 inches wider, and 9.5 inches longer, with a wheelbase stretched by 11.9 inches. Except for the rear suicide doors, the Telluride sports plenty of production cues, such as normal-size mirrors and pillars, and body panels that aren’t madly stamped with wild surface details. The giant grille, multiple-LED headlamps, and 22-inch wheels that once would have been wild, show-car items are now required just to grab a fraction of our attention; the Telluride has ’em all.
Beneath the Telluride’s murky Dark Pyrite paint there’s a plug-in-hybrid powertrain, specifically a 3.5-liter direct-injected 270-hp V-6 and a 130-hp electric motor, the latter presumably mounted on the rear axle (the Telluride is all-wheel drive, of course). Kia claims better than 30 mpg on the highway but didn’t share any other performance specs.
The official line is that Kia has no plans to put the Telluride into production. Don’t believe it. Kia’s U.S. sales are at a point where the Sportage and Sorento can afford to have a bigger sibling, especially one that appears more trucklike. The boom times for nonpremium large SUVs may have passed, but there’s still money to be minted with these machines. Butch Cassidy didn’t rob his first bank until 1889—in Telluride, no less—some 17 years after the first miners founded the place. So there’s time yet for Kia.
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