AM Awards 2021 winner: Used Car of the Year, Kia Sportage

The Kia Sportage has re-established its dominance as the AM readers’ Used Car of the Year at the AM Awards 2021.

While the Volkswagen Golf took the prize in 2020, Kia’s family SUV all-rounder had otherwise secured retailers' votes to win the prize every year since 2016.

The Korean brand now has a broad range of vehicles, from the sporty Stinger to the latest hybrid and electric vehicles.

However, after the Picanto and Ceed broke down the door to the mainstream following the introduction of the UK scrappage scheme back in 2009, it was the third-generation Sportage that firmly established Kia as a coveted franchise for dealerships across the UK in the following years, consistently becoming a top seller for the brand.

The fourth-generation was given a facelift in 2018 and was still Kia’s top selling model last year, with more than 34,500 delivered to UK customers.

The Sportage continues to give plenty of features and makes sure prices are comparable with even the best-value alternatives.

But the Sportage offers so much more. It is a handsome and distinctive machine to look at, feels modern inside and shrugs off everything a growing family can throw at it.

New Sportages are loaded with equipment, with all versions since 2020 featuring a ‘frameless’ eight-inch touchscreen satellite navigation system with the latest UVO Connect telematics system, as well as Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and Bluetooth smartphone connectivity.

These standard features help to ensure that franchised dealers always have a supply of well-specified used examples that are less than 20 months old and under 20,000 miles flowing back into the network through Kia’s approved used car programme.

Kia’s famous transferable seven-year warranty also means used cars less than five years old, which are a franchised dealer’s bread-and-butter, will also be covered by manufacturer warranty, another added bonus to prospective buyers.