Junkyard Find: 1996 Kia Sportage 4x4
One of my favorite things to do while exploring American car graveyards is searching for very early examples of vehicles made by marques new to the United States market. This has been a challenge with Kia, because Kia Motors America got off to such a slow sales start and almost none of the handful of mid-1990s vehicles sold are still around several decades later. Here's one of the first Sportages brought to our shores, found in a yard south of Denver, Colorado.
The company that became Kia got its start building bicycles in the 1950s, then moved on to assembling motorcycles and cars for other manufacturers in later years.
Ford partnered with Kia starting in the middle 1980s, which resulted in the Mazda-based Kia Pride being sold the United States as the 1988-1993 Ford Festiva and 1994-1997 Aspire.
Kia Motors America was established in California in 1992, and the first four Kia dealerships were established in Oregon. Starting in February of 1994, the initial batch of Kia Sephias to be imported appeared at those dealerships.
Here's the build sticker from a 1990 Festiva. As you can see, Kia didn't bother to design a new sticker when it came time to sell cars with its own badging, despite the Ford-specific code fields. Kia was still using this type of sticker as the 21st century dawned, in fact.
I was very excited to find a 1995 Sephia (with a November 1994 build date) in a Colorado boneyard last year, and I'm still hoping to find a MY1994 example one day, even if that means making a trip to the Pacific Northwest. The first model year for the Sportage was 1995.
The Sephia used a chassis design developed entirely by Kia, a first for the company, but the first-generation Sportage was based on the third-generation Mazda Bongo van platform.
The 1995 Sportage was available in the United States with standard part-time four-wheel-drive; for 1996, Sportage buyers here could choose between front- and four-wheel-drive.
The MSRP for the base 1996 Sportage 4x4 with automatic transmission was $16,295. That's about $33,526 in 2025 dollars. Meanwhile, your Toyota dealer would sell you a new 1996 four-door RAV4 with four doors, automatic and all-wheel-drive for $18,098 ($37,236 after inflation). The Honda CR-V first arrived as a 1997 model.
The engine is a Mazda DOHC 2.0-liter straight-four rated at 128 horsepower.
By the middle 1990s, most American SUV shoppers insisted on automatic transmissions. Unfortunately for Kia at the time, they were also beginning to understand that AWD was less confusing for drivers than 4WD. Not at all coincidentally, 1996 was the first model year in which every Subaru sold in the United States came with AWD as standard equipment.
This Sportage almost reached 150,000 miles during its 29 years on the road. The highest-mile Kia I've ever found in a junkyard was a Festiva with 317,207 miles.
This generation of Sportage remained available in the United States through 2002. Kia declared bankruptcy in 1997 and was taken over by Hyundai the following year, which meant that Mazda hardware could be phased out.
For 2003 and 2004, American Kia shoppers had to buy a Sorento if they wanted a Kia SUV. Then the second-generation Sportage appeared as a 2005 model, and it was a much bigger machine based on the Hyundai Tucson.
It survived the Paris-Dakar Rally!
As was nearly always the case, the SKDM advertising was far superior to what we got on this side of the Pacific. This one features the heavy-reverb macho voiceover so popular in 1980s and 1990s South Korean car commercials.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
1996 Kia Sportage 4x4 in Colorado wrecking yard.
[Images: The Author]
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Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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I am amazed this lasted almost 30 years unless its been parked since 2010?
I worked for a Atlanta start-up in the mid-90s that was doing very well. As we were all partners and the company was successful, money was flowing and everyone had some nice cars. Our CFO, a quirky guy shows up one day in a new Kia Sportage, dark green. The diminutive Korean was lost in the company lot full of new Tahoe's Expeditions, Suburban's and anchored by a couple of Porsche's of the founders. All of us were car guys, we poured over the tiny KIA, impressed with the content and tidy looks, a RAV 4 looked like a kit car in comparison. It served the CFO well, but he dumnped it after 2 years fed up with awful dealer service and slow parts availabiloty. Last I saw he was in a new V8 4Runner Limited and much happier.