New Kia Picanto X-Line is an ‘Allroad’ take on Kia’s City Car

The new Kia Picanto X-Line has been revealed as a bit of an SUV take on Kia’s successful City Car, with a raised ride height, skid plates and added protection.

Car buyers love a little City Car for blatting around tow, but they also love a little SUV. So Kia has a solution – the new Kia Picanto X-Line.

Taking the really rather good little Picanto, Kia has added butch to make it the Picanto more of a little Urban Warrior and less of a straightforward City Car.

Kia say the Picanto X-Line draws inspiration from the Sportage and Sorento, and comes with a raised ride height (just 15mm, but it’s noticeable) and some new rugged design elements.

It gets more aggressive bumpers as well as metal-looking skid plates at the front and back, lime green highlights round the grille and Fogs (but you can have silver if you prefer) and the de rigueur plastic cladding round the wheel arches to make the X-Line look bigger and bolder.

The new Picanto X-Line also comes with Kia’s 1.0 litre T-GDI three cylinder engine – which you could only have in the Rio of Cee’d until now – with 99bhp, an engine also heading for the Picanto’s GT-Line Models.

Equipment on the X-Line includes 16″ alloys, LED running lights, Keyless, 7″ Touchscreen with Sat Nav, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, rear-view camera, wireless smartphone charging and a sport steering wheel.

The Kia Picanto X-Line will debut next week at the Frankfurt Motor Show and will go on sale in the UK in Q4 2017.