Don’t get mislead! At just a quck glance you’ll most probably think of 280 horsepower Subaru Impreza WRX Sti, but a second look will reveal that you’re actually looking at a heavily modified Kia Rio!
Yup folks, the car you see here is the current generation Kia Rio with some darn good looking modifications that simply transformed the Rio car to look reminiscent of the brutal and sexy Subaru Impreza WRX Sti.
Is there anyone who knows the owner of this B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. Kia Rio? The car is a looker and we would like to hear some more details on it!! Please, report to info@kia-world.net
Click image to enlarge!
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:08 am
wow that actually does look nice. normally i wouldn’t like something like this but this is a looker.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:52 am
Actually I saw something very similar in a Kia showroom here in Australia, several months back. I was peering through the, closed at the time, dealers plate glass window with cupped hands and I caught sight of this thing in their showroom, that looks exactly the same as your photos. I thought to myself they must be selling Subaru’s now as well as Kia’s, and to my surprise when I had a better look it was a Kia Rio. As you say it looked fantastic. It had a sign on it to say it was sold, but I assumed it must have been the dealer putting some after-market gear onto it. Looked great though.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
If you look at the plate, does it look like it was Australian, OzyTone? Let’s find this guy and make an interview with him!!
October 24th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Gee Himi, it’s very hard to tell. With the window tint it’s hard to say if it’s LHD or RHD. One photo it looks as though he/she is about to drive into the LH side of the road, as we do here, but the photo it doesn’t, so as I said hard to tell. The number plate doesn’t look Australian, mainly because ours here are Alpha- Numeric, 3 letters followed by 3 numbers, but you can have a personalized plate as well and the one on this car has 07 followed by what looks like a “t” or an oriental character. On the front windscreen is the car registration sticker, which is where we’d put them here in Australia, on the passenger side of the vehicle (RHD). So if it’s not the one I seen here, it could be from Japan or Hong Kong as they have RHD vehicles as well as here in Oz.
The thing I could do is go and check out with local Kia dealer and ask them how and why they made up this particular look to the vehicle. I would doubt if they’d tell me who they sold it to, but they may have done others.
So leave it with me.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:01 am
its a left hand drive vehicle – the only reason i know is… look @ the wipers, they are more positioned to the passenger side on the right so the driver gets a better view of the outside. RHD vehicles are the exact opposite. thought i’d letcha’ll know.
October 24th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Yep, I reckon you’re right there JoshyLofty, very observant. I reckon also the greenery doesn’t look native Australian either, we’ve got mainly Eucalyptus trees here, although there are areas of planted or even natural Conifers. So if it’s LHD it’s probably Korean to start with and work from there. Himi didn’t say where he got the photos of the Rio from.
October 24th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I got the pics at one of the Korean websites, but I think reg. plates look different than we usually see on Korean vehicles. Don’t they?
October 24th, 2008 at 11:23 am
its not korean reg plate. take a look at the forum thread of this rio. I’ve posted Australian reg plate formats.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Link to the thread: http://www.kia-world.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=745
October 24th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Good going there K-Sport, you’ve got yor’re finger on the pulse all over the world and yes the format of the plates here in South Australia have just changed in the last week or so, but the Rio I saw a several months back.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:45 am
i know its a week late but yeah busy with bak 2 skool stuff here in australia lately… thats definitely a korean plate… the format is something like this… “07?4854″ which means that its the new korean number plates that they used from this year or the end of last year… my dad’s car has the same style of plate in korea~
August 26th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Guys….. Really???!!!
Why would you buy a car and make it look like another? Wouldn’t it be better to just buy the real thing… Sorry, I think this is very silly and worse it’ll never match up to a WRX STI.
August 26th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
“Why would you buy a car and make it look like another? Wouldn’t it be better to just buy the real thing… Sorry, I think this is very silly and worse it’ll never match up to a WRX STI.”
So what its a free country Dan ain’t paying your cable or phone bill, so quit your bitchin.