Tiger Nose Grille Is the Kia Grille of the Present, and the Future

We don't know what every Kia of the future will look like.

But we do know what grille they will wear.

According to Peter Schreyer, Kia's design boss who came to Kia from Audi's design department, "I am very happy and I think it is very good for Kia that we have the tiger nose." And Schreyer says, in a CarBuzz report, that the trademark front end will remain in place as a brand-identifying fixture in the same way that BMW persists with twin kidney grilles and Aston Martin maintains its menacingly frowning mouth.

Schreyer isn't simply exerting his design authority at Kia, either. The entire department agrees: Tiger Nose Forever.

This doesn't mean every Kia will adopt the exact dimensions of, for example, the Stinger's grille, nor does it require the Optima to take the exact shape of the Rio's. "The tiger nose is much more variable," the former Audi TT designer says. "You can make it higher, lower, wider, smaller, pair it with different headlamps, whatever. As long as you have the two things in the middle, it always works."

The tiger nose debuted in 2007 at the Frankfurt Motor Show on the Kia Kee Concept. The unique shape has allowed Kia to create a specific identifier that is Kia's signature, a shape you can recognize on any Kia product that's approaching you on the highway, whether it's the more obvious Sportage's tiger nose or the more subtle Sorento's.