The Kia Elan was never a chart-topping icon, but for those who remember it, it carried a certain charm. A compact roadster borrowed from Lotus DNA, it was Kia’s unlikely flirtation with sportiness in the mid-’90s. Fast forward to today, and designer JinTae Tak is revisiting that lineage, not by replicating the original, but by extracting its essence and reshaping it for the electric era.
The Kia Elan EV concept doesn’t just hint at a new design language, it commits to one. You won’t find soft curves or classic sports car proportions here. Instead, the Elan EV cuts through convention with brutal, origami-like surfaces and a stance that hugs the ground like it’s part of the architecture. There’s no pretense of retro styling, just deliberate, sculpted form driven by the freedoms afforded by EV platforms.
Designer: JinTae Tak
JinTae Tak’s main objective was to use electrification as a design opportunity, not just an engineering shift. With no bulky combustion engine to accommodate, the Elan EV lowers its nose dramatically, resulting in a pronounced wedge silhouette. It’s sharp and aggressive, but not impractical. The side profile is where this decision is most apparent. The car hunkers forward, creating a visual tension that draws your eye from the subtle peak of the roofline down into the low-slung nose. This isn’t just for drama. It’s a studied way of reinterpreting the low center of gravity look of the original Elan, now translated into a closed-top GT form.
Look closely and you’ll notice how many times the same narrow, angular motif repeats across the body. From the pinch at the A-pillar to the fender transitions and the flush door seams, it’s a consistent language of compression and expansion. There’s a kind of visual rhythm in how these angles play with the light, almost architectural.
From the front, the EV’s lighting treatment makes an immediate statement. A series of segmented LEDs span the nose, mirroring the rear lighting in layout and attitude. It gives the car a clear identity, especially in low light. The hood, with its severe wedge, risks looking overly narrow, but JinTae solves this with a visual trick. The wide fender volumes spill out toward the ground, offsetting the narrowness of the centerline and pulling the car visually wider.
Swing around to the rear and the fenders become the main event. Unlike the original Elan’s simple surfacing, the Elan EV revels in volume here. The horizontal gesture is emphasized with precision, letting the taillights slice across cleanly. It’s one of the more direct nods to the roadster roots of the original car, though executed with today’s taste for muscular silhouettes and precise geometry.
Even the wheels are worth a second look. They’re huge, visually enclosed, and likely designed to aid aerodynamics, typical EV priorities. But their styling doubles down on the overall theme, angular, directional, and aggressive.
Given the conceptual nature, there’s no spec sheet, no drivetrain details, and no promises of production. That’s not really the point. The Kia Elan EV is a design study that explores how brands can revisit the past without repeating it. It’s not a tribute to the old Elan. It’s a conversation with it.
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