Whereas Hyundai’s sister ship is coming with a whole new body, Kia’s car limits to front, rear and interior refreshen.

ONE goes completely new, the other appears to be heading for a styling refresh - that’s the difference set to show next year with the Hyundai Santa Fe and its sibling behind the Kia badge.

A facelift for the latter has just been revealed and makes clear that Kia’s taking a different, less extreme design update for its model, which as is traditional bases off the parent brand’s car.

The big change for Sorento is a new front design inspired by the larger EV9, also inbound, and North America-only Telluride, with redesigned vertical headlights, ‘signature star map’ daytime running lamps, and a broader front grille.

However, the overall update is clearly at a less intensive level than that set to come to the Santa Fe.

Both the sister brands’ sibling models will base off the current N3 platform, the Hyundai is steering away from likelihood of misidentification with a wholly new next-gen look, shared last week, that brings a radically boxier exterior and a redesigned cabin focused on space.

Kia New Zealand has yet to express when the updated Sorento will come. The new look appears to have been uncovered ahead of time; media snared images of car in its new state earlier this week.

The styling revision brings a new lower front bumper and sees the Kia badge shifted from the grille to the bonnet.

Other design revisions are limited to a new lower rear bumper and alloy wheels, and updated tail-lights now connected at each end.

New exterior colours – interstellar grey, cityscape grey and volcanic sand brown – are available in South Korea.

Interior changes deliver a curved, single-piece ‘panoramic’ display for the infotainment system and digital instrument cluster, as per the EV6 and Sportage, in place of the current hooded cluster.

The infotainment system, now up from 10.25 inches to 12.3, runs the Hyundai-Kia Group’s latest ccNC infotainment system, with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity for variants with sat-nav. Reports say compatibility for over the air updates seems likely.

There appear to be no updates to the Sorento's powertrains, which presently span 2.2-litre turbo-diesel and 1.6-litre petrol with conventional and plug-in hybrid.