Remember that quirky youth car from Kia, strangely called “Soul”? Although, not as extremely popular as the Sportage or even the Cerato, Kia has decided to spice up the competition by giving it a mid-cycle update. At the 2011 New York Auto Show, the 2012 Kia Soul was revealed with some welcome improvements, including new styling and mechanicals.
For a taste of what we don’t get here, for one reason or another, here is the 2011 Kia Sportage SX Turbo that just debuted in the United States.
If you were in the market for a compact European yuppy-mobile, you might want to wait until the 2012 Kia Rio hits the road by winter. Because it is, as with recent Kia products, a stunner, at least in hatchback form anyway.
The Rio is one of the few cars still carrying the old Kia baggage. But despite Kia only releasing these simple sketches of the next-generaiton 2012 Rio, the car is more ready than you’d think. It is set to debut in March at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show.
Kia Motors has released the first official photos of the next-generation 2012 Picanto “city car” featuring the firm’s latest corporate styling.
The recalls were piling in hard and fast during this year. While we kept up with most of the ones which could’ve potentially affected car owners in the Middle East, we simply stopped keeping track around two months ago, because it became interminably boring writing up repetitive “recall” stories. However, we have a duty to at least highlight the ones which could matter, so here is a rundown of all the recalls in the last 60 days, most issued in the U.S. but which may also affect some GCC-spec cars. Consult your local dealer.
Say what you want about the Americans, but they are a serious bunch when it comes to safety. The U.S. government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — NHTSA — is the one that mandates airbags and tyre-pressure monitors in all new cars, subdued automakers into making their roof strength higher while inadvertently making outward visibility worse due to thicker pillars, and is set to force rear-view cameras on all new cars by 2014 thereby making car prices higher. And if that weren’t enough, there are not one, but two agencies in the U.S. that conduct crash tests, one being the NHTSA and other being the private Insurance Institute for Highway Safety —
The 2011 Kia Optima is hot. It is so hot that it is sold out wherever it has been launched so far. It is sold out in the UAE too, and it isn’t even out yet officially. The car will hit GCC roads by the first week of November, but Kia organised an all-day media test-drive in Dubai.
The Kia Cerato hatchback is joining the Korean carmaker’s range for 2011. Technically similar to the 4-door sedan and 2-door Koup models, the new Cerato 5-door has the same overall width, height and wheelbase as the sedan, but the rear overhang is reduced by 190 mm, as is the overall length.
Korea’s fast-growing carmaker Kia Motors has announced just announced a growth in sales of 24.4% for August, compared to August last year. Posting growing sales numbers throughout the recession, the news is overshadowed by the fact that Kia’s Vice Chairman Jeong Sung Eun resigned to take responsibility for the recent recall of four models as the South Korean carmaker, to be replaced by new Vice Chairman Hyoung-Keun Lee. Those Koreans sure take their recalls personally.