UPDATE: Live photos of the Kia Soul from the Los Angeles Auto Show are now in the gallery below.

After about five years on the market, the second-generation Soul is ready to bow out and make room for what Kia describes as an all-new model. Retaining some of the funkiness that made the first two models popular, the 2020MY adopts a quirky front-end design with slim upper lights and a set of chunkier clusters mounted lower on the bumper. The front grille is bigger than before to give the boxy crossover a more imposing stance.

Gallery: 2020 Kia Soul

83 Photos

Moving at the side profile, Kia is hopping on the “floating roof” bandwagon by blacking out the upper section of the rear pillar where you’ll notice the “Soul” lettering embedded as a stylish body graphic. The South Korean marque mentions the rear pillar has been designed to resemble the wings of an airplane, while the derrière stay true to its predecessors by keeping the vertical lights. The rear clusters are now shaped like a boomerang and meet at the top to lend the 2020 Soul an interesting look.

Kia knows variety is the spice of life and for this reason, it will offer the new generation in new GT-Line and X-Line trims. These are already available on some of the company’s models in Europe and bring an assortment of styling tweaks for a sportier exterior in the case of the GT-Line (red car) and a rugged crossover-esque theme for the X-Line (green car).

In terms of size, the new Soul retains the width and height of its predecessor while gaining 2.2 inches (nearly 5.6 centimeters) in length. It’s now 165.2 inches (4.19 meters) long and part of the stretch has gone into the wheelbase, now measuring 102.4 inches (2.6 meters) or 1.2 inches (3 cm) more than before.

While front legroom has increased by 0.2 inches (0.5 cm), passengers sitting in the back will be disappointed to hear legroom has gone down by 0.3 inches (0.7 cm). Not only that, but front headroom is down by 0.2 inches (0.5 cm) while rear headroom along with shoulder room for both front and rear passengers has remained unchanged.

You’ll be happy to hear the third-gen Soul will be a better companion on longer trips thanks to a more generous cargo capacity, at 23.8 cubic feet or 5 cu. ft. more than before. In addition, the liftgate is now wider and lower, so it will be easier to maneuver luggage compared to its predecessors.

Underneath the hood, you’ll find either a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter with 147 horsepower and 132 pound-feet (179 Newton-meters) of torque or a beefier turbocharged 1.6-liter rated at 201 hp and 195 lb-ft (264 Nm). The former is hooked up to a six-speed manual or an optional continuously variable transmission whereas the turbo engine is exclusively linked to a seven-speed, dual-clutch automatic.

Kia promises the all-new platform brings dividends in terms of handling and comfort while also lowering noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) levels. On upper-spec cars, the interior is home to a 10.25-inch touchscreen for the infotainment system, complete with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay integration. There’s also an 8-inch head-up display and a 10-speaker Harman Kardon sound system pumping out 640 watts or twice as much as the outgoing Soul.

The interior’s party piece is a mood lighting system, which will alter the settings depending on the chosen “mood.” By the way, these have some rather interesting names: Romance, Traveling, Party Time, Hey! Yo!, Café, and Midnight City.

Following its debut today at the Los Angeles Auto Show, the revamped Soul will go on sale in the U.S. in the first half of 2019 when Kia will also roll out the zero-emissions Soul EV.

Source: Kia

Live Photo Credit: Andrew T. Maness / @TheRoadLessDriven / Motor1.com