Kia honours Rafael Nadal with a full-size car sculpted from tennis-court clay

The surface that helped define Rafael Nadal’s career has become the material for an unusual tribute from Kia: a full-size clay concept model of the EV4 GT.

Created with INNOCEAN Berlin, “The King of Clay” connects Nadal’s achievements on tennis courts with the clay modelling used in automotive design.

Kia presented the sculpture to its long-standing global ambassador at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca, celebrating a partnership that began in 2004.

One material connects two different crafts

For Nadal, clay was the surface on which he built an extraordinary record. He won 63 men’s singles titles on it, including 14 at Roland-Garros.

For automotive designers, modelling clay provides a physical way to shape a vehicle and assess its proportions before production.

Kia brought those associations together by blending automotive modelling clay with clay sourced from courts where Nadal competed and won.

The result retains the EV4 GT hatchback’s proportions while giving its material a meaning specific to the recipient. It is a sculptural concept model, rather than a drivable vehicle.

Tennis-court lines trace the car’s form

The connection continues across the model’s surface.

White tennis-court markings replace the tape designers normally use to define a clay model’s contours. References to Nadal’s career achievements appear along those lines, making the sculpture a record of his sporting journey as well as a representation of a Kia vehicle.

The treatment gives viewers details to discover beyond the overall shape. A familiar court marking becomes part of the car’s design language, linking the two worlds visually as well as materially.

Four films share the process and presentation

The campaign includes four films documenting the project, from behind-the-scenes work and the model’s creation to its presentation to Nadal in Mallorca.

That gives the tribute a story beyond the finished object. The making process explains the material connection, while the handover shows who the sculpture was created for.

For audiences encountering the campaign online, those stages help make the significance of the gift visible.

A partnership expressed through a physical object

Kia’s relationship with Nadal began before his first Grand Slam title and has continued for more than two decades.

“The King of Clay” gives that history a physical form. The idea comes from something central to both partners: a surface associated with Nadal’s greatest achievements and a material Kia’s designers use to develop vehicles.

That shared connection makes the sculpture personal to the athlete while keeping the brand’s own craft at the centre of the tribute.

Credits

Brand: Kia. Campaign: The King of Clay. Creative agency: INNOCEAN Berlin. Chief Creative Officer: Gabriel Mattar. Director: Petr Krejci. Featured ambassador: Rafael Nadal. Model: Kia EV4 GT clay concept. Presentation location: Rafa Nadal Academy, Mallorca, Spain. Announced: November 2026.