MT GARAGE

Arrival: 2021 Kia Seltos

EPA City/Hwy/Comb Fuel Econ

25/30/27 mpg

“Is the Kia Seltos a compact? Subcompact? Maybe it’s a little bit of both.”
Conner Golden

Base Price $26,610 As Tested $26,915

Our new long-term 2021 Kia Seltos is like a box of chocolate truffles without the filling cheat-sheet. It’s not a matter of perceived deliciousness; based on the fun we had on prior drives and tests of Kia’s new big-little crossover, we don’t need a year with the Seltos to make up our minds on whether we like it.

Even so, we’re still not sure what the heck it is, not unlike biting into one of those truffles packed with a delicious yet befuddling filling. Amaretto? Compact? Praline? Subcompact? Ganache? We have 12 months to find out.

Maybe it’s not the what so much as it is the why that has us scrutinizing the metaphorical chocolate box lid. The what is easy; essentially, the Seltos is a segment in-betweener, straddling the line between subcompact and compact SUVs, though it’s officially shoved into the subcompact SUV segment by both Kia and the EPA. It shares its bones with the subcompact Kia Soul and Hyundai Kona, but its size slots between these and the larger Kia Sportage and the Hyundai Tucson.

The Seltos’ growth spurt over its Soul and Kona siblings isn’t limited to size. Wearing a more upright traditional SUV profile with AWD standard on every trim but S, Kia markets the Seltos as an adventuremobile just as comfortable cutting a path up to a mountain cabin as it is commuting downtown. That’s right—Kia hopes the butch-ish and macho-y Seltos will attract active lifestyle types who use their SUVs to haul muddy mountain bikes, sopping wetsuits, and shedding dogs.

Is this our call to be more active? We’ll see, but the spec sheet on our long-term Seltos certainly inspires us to at least dust the Doritos crumbs off our sweats and hit the road.

Our Neptune Blue example arrived in S Turbo trim, the second from the top out of five total trims, right underneath the leading SX Turbo. No points awarded for guessing if ours has the naturally aspirated