Kia EV6 VS Toyota Kluger

Two more different looking SUVs you could not find. Actually, the EV6 GT barely even looks like an SUV although that’s what Kia calls it and the industry classifies it as such.

Have a look at the images, or better still watch the video we made above, to take in the stark comparison between the styling of these vehicles.

The Mustang Mach-E GT looks reassuringly like a Mustang SUV with its vertical bar tail-lights, the muscular rear haunches, blade headlights, shark nose bonnet and big grille.

Well, it’s not a real grille but if you look closely you’ll see the faint outline of honeycomb mesh behind the semi-transparent plastic.

The Kia EV6 GT looks more like a bloated hatchback than an SUV, but you could argue that’s all an SUV is, anyway, I guess.

Still, it’s a stunning design with its pinched in nose, bulbous and smooth panels, looking low, wide and intimidating like a venomous insect complete with lime green brake calipers.

Despite the obvious exterior differences their dimensions aren’t wildly different as you can see in the table below, only the height sets them apart.

If all you had to go with were these figures I’m sure you’d never imagine they’d belong to two very different looking SUVs. The extra height gives the Mustang GT Mach-E a more upright and boxy design, and this affects practicality as you’ll read about further on. For now let's look at their insides on purely stylistic merits.

Of course they have completely different interiors. The Mustang Mach-E GT has a more macho, serious but sporty cabin with high quality feeling fabrics adorning the dashboard and synthetic leather seats. Only the gigantic portrait media display makes this feel like a modern Ford product.

The EV6 GT’s cabin feels dark, like a cave but one filled with expansive screens and tech. There are intriguing patterns etched into the dashboard and deep seats that wrap around their occupants.

Its innards are as alien as its exterior and I’m here for it. And so are many people. Probably not those who like the Mustang Mach-E GT’s cabin, though.

I think the Mustang Mach-E GT pulls off a better look, especially considering the pressure it’s designers would have been under to create an SUV version of one of the most iconic cars on Earth.  

The Toyota Kluger is the New Balance sneaker of cars. Yep, Toyota has nailed Mum-and-Dad fashion with the look of the Kluger, without any hint of irony.

This generation came out in 2021 and you can guarantee Toyota won’t bring out a new-gen version until about 2028, possibly 2030.

And even then that one will also look like a loaf of bread, just with a different face. Like this one, and the last one and the one before that.

That reminds me, we need bread.

The Kluger looks tough, but not elegant. It looks modern, but not avante-garde. It looks functional and tells the world, 'if it wasn’t for the kids I wouldn’t be driving this'.

Get past the Kluger Grande’s uninspiring exterior and you’ll find a surprisingly upmarket cabin that's full of air and light, well appointed with premium seats as well as a modern and stylish dashboard.

The Grande grade adds some nice trimmings I didn't mention in the features section such as the wood-look elements, ambient lighting, and the soft-touch instrument panel.

The exterior also gains chrome elements in the grille, roof rails and larger 20-inch chrome-look wheels.

There are some elements which bring the tone down in the cabin. The JBL speakers in the windscreen pillars look like big plastic novelty ears and the wood-look trim doesn’t look or feel like wood (why didn’t they use real wood?), but it’s not worth getting uppity about.