Usually we don’t have any problems recognizing prototype cars under a heavy camouflage, but sometimes car companies mask them so damn well (like this time) that we can only guess what badge lies under all the coverings.

So guyz, I would appreciate some help with this spy shot. Can you take a look at it and tell us your opinion on this car? What Kia could this be? Is that Kia at all?

As you can see, the car is fully disguised with a heavy black camouflage. This kind of camo is typical for preproduction Hyundai-Kia vehicles. Undoubtedly, the shape of this prototype reveals it’s a wagon type vehicle with the size of a car belonging to the compact car class.

Looking at the prototype, the first car that comes to my mind is the cee’d wagon. It’s shape seems to be similar and it’s size as well. But Kia cee’d has only been on sale for two years, so it’s still a bit early to expect it to receive a facelift.

So, what do you think of this spy shot? Do we have a new Kia, Hyundai or some other new Korean vehicle here? Have you heard of Samsung cars (in alliance with Renault)? What about Daewoo or SsangYong?

Eeach day, I receive a few e-mails from my readers, asking me about the pricing on the new Kia Soul. Until yesterday, all of them received my reply saying that unfortunately, the pricing was not yet announced, but we are expecting the Soul to be priced fairly and competitively, just like any other Kia car.

Today, after I received an inside official document, I can finally show you a brief preview on Soul pricing for the France market. Depending on country, the prices will most probably slightly differ, but let’s have this document as a general sample.

In France, the price for Kia Soul was set at 14,990 Euros. The starting price buys you the base Kia Soul model equipped with 1,6-liter gasoline engine, coupled with 5-speed manual transmission, but most buyers will probably opt for the 1,6L turbodiesel engine that offers same horsepower but lower fuel consumption.

The base Soul model, equipped with diesel engine, will cost you 2,000 Euros more than it’s gasoline powered counterpart. It’s pricing starts just a tad below 17 grand, at 16,990 Euros and goes up to 19,990 Euros for the “Edition Limitee” Kia Soul.

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UK automotive media are the first ones to test drive the 2009 Kia Soul. The fellows at Whatcar magazine put together a short preview of the Korean-spec Soul model when on visit in South Korea. The same folks also exclusively test drove the 2010 Kia Sorento prototype, which report you could have read at the KIA-WORLD blog yesterday.

They test drove a brand-new Soul equipped with 1,6L CRDI diesel engine that generates quite a respectable amount of horsepower (126hp). This is their first Soul review and they collected some interesting opinions on the car. I will not get into the actual review, but would like to point out some important details.

The Soul is described as an attractive looking car that offers lots of interior space and is a great value with a temptingly low starting price of just Ł11,000. Although the cabin plastics aren’t the last word in quality, the interior is comfortable and attractively designed. It offers a variety of interior colours and seat fabrics. Whatcar states that there is plenty of space in the Soul, almost nearly as much as in the Nissan Qashqai, a vehicle larger by at least one size.

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The company has already started some activities to promote the 2010 Kia Sorento to the public. The all-new Sorento crossover is still a few months away, but the company has already revealed some secrets on it’s future 4×4 vehicle. A prototype of the 2010 Sorento had been shown to the British Whatcar magazine, whose editor has also got behind the wheel and made an exclusive test drive with it.

The most important news about the 2010 Sorento is it’s “set up”. Unlike the current Sorento, which is sitting on the body on frame platform, the new model adopts a car-like monoque structure, meaning that it’s ride quality has been dramatically improved.

Although the test-drive was only limited to test track, Sorento’s handling felt stiffer and less wayward compared to the current model. With an unibody platform, the towing capacity has lowered, but Kia promises Sorento will still be able to handle itself off-road and when towing.

The new Sorento has grown in size, and will offer seating for five or seven people. It will get a brand new 2,2L diesel engine, which will pack more power and higher torque. The horsepower figure for the new engine is 186 horsepower and 304 ft-lbs. of torque. The engine will be paired with the all new six speed automatic transmission.

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Last week, a special ship from South Korea, carrying 3,500 tons of automobile-making equipment, approached the Savannah port. The equipment, loaded on the ship, was destined for Kia’s $1,2 billion manufacturing plant, which is under construction in West Point Georgia, USA.

Over the next few weeks, all of the equipment will be transported from Savannah to Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia Inc.’s facility, located 300 miles away from the port. Some of the equipment will be transported on a fleet of trucks that includes a dual-lane trailers, while other, larger pieces, weighing up to 125 tons will be trucked by a specialized 19-axle transporters, designed to carry the largest cargo pieces.

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Kia Motors today reported it’s global sales of passenger cars, recreation vehicles (RVs) and commercial vehicles for the month of September 2008. In spite of uncertain economic times, Kia managed to increase it’s September sales to 110,431 vehicles, up 2,7 percent year-on-year.

During the first nine months, Kia’s best selling model in overseas markets has been the Cerato (known as Spectra in some markets) with 154,929 units sold. It is followed by a group of two compact vehicles and a compact SUV: the B-segment Rio at 121,896 units, the C-segment cee’d at 116,097 units and Kia’s Sportage compact SUV at 111,870 units. The A-segment Picanto rounds out the group of five best selling Kia cars with 74,915 units sold.

By region, Kia posted year-on-year sales increases in general markets; 25,851 units sold, a 45.7% year-on-year increase, South Korea; 24,322 units sold, a 19.5% year-on-year increase and China; 11,012 units, a 10.9% year-on-year increase. Meanwhile, in September, Kia’s sales figures went down to 28,091 units in Europe (-12,4%) and 21,155 in North America (-22,8%). (more…)

Are you ready for another Kia Soul article? You’d better be, because if you miss this one, you’ll miss a great opportunity to see a huge amount of official Soul images! All of these pictures are new and were not posted at the Kia blog before!

At first, I planned to create an “ultimate Kia Soul gallery” article and upload all the images to this post, but then you would have some hard time looking through the gallery, as the blog doesn’t support the image gallery in the posts. In that case you would have to open each image individually and then go back to see another one. With 68 different images, this would be quite a heroic action for anyone of you.

Therefore I decided to uploaded all the pictures to our Kia gallery. The gallery is very easy to use and allows you to look at the pictures one after other, while enabling you also to enlarge each image to it’s full size.

Enjoy the pics in the ultimate Kia Soul gallery.

Click image to enlarge! (more…)

The new Kia compact car to hit Australia will not be the European built cee’d as some reports suggested, but the all-new Kia Forte sedan. Due for release in the Australian market in early 2009, the Forte will be rebadged to Cerato and will be offered with a fuel efficient 2,0L gasoline engine.

The 2009 Cerato/Forte will be the first Kia car released in Australia to feature the “new face” of Kia. It was designed under the leadership of Mr. Peter Schreyer, a very famous car designer who joined Kia Motors company in 2006 from the Volkswagen Group. The Cerato is the first mass production Kia vehicle that embodies Schreyer’s car design philosophy and introduces the new Kia face that is sporty with an element of aggression.

Compared to the current Cerato, the 2009 model’s wheelbase has been extended to offer a more spacious interior. While offering more room for five occupants, it also has a larger boot compared to the model currently on sale.

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Those of you who have been actively browsing throughout our Kia Forums had a chance to see a very special version of the Kia Soul crossover. One of our members (meshwerks), who joined us just recently, attached a pair of very interesting pictures that illustrate a three door variant of Kia Soul.

Not wanting to confuse anyone with this three door Kia Soul, I’d like to point out that Kia does not plan to build a three door model, but if it did, the production ready car would probably look pretty close to the one we see here. While loosing a pair of doors, the Soul retained it’s boxy shape and stylish look. Both images look very good and are done so extremely well, that they are well worth to be shown at the front page of KIA WORLD blog. Kudos to designer!!

As said, the three door Soul variant is not planned for the production. There has been no spy shots and no rumors at all indicating the Soul range would expand with additional models. However, I wouldn’t mind Kia developing a sporty Soul variant, equipped with turbo engine, sport-tuned suspension and spiced up with an attractive/aggressive looking body kit.

Check out the images attached below and thell us what you think of three door Kia Soul? Do you think a sporty version would fit well in the Soul range?

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Mazda has just released a few official shots of it’s upcoming Mazda3 replacement. In addition to that, the company also announced it plans to officially unveil it’s hot new Mazda3 compact sedan at the 2008 L.A. Auto Show in November.

If there’s an interest, we will look at the car in a few more details when it makes an official US debut next month, but not now. What we will do today is to visually compare it against it’s South Korean opponent, the Kia Forte. Both cars are four-door sedans similar in size and both also belong to an increasingly popular compact car segment. Starting next year, they will do the battle against each other and try to attract as many customers as possible.

With months to come, the all-new Mazda3 will not be the only car to join the battle. There are many new models, similar in size as Kia Forte, announced to enter the race for the customers. Just to remember, there is a new Chevrolet Cruze about to enter US market, as well as next generation VW Jetta and others.

Now, let’s compare these two vehicles and share your two cents with us about what you think of these two cars, based on six images that are posted below. This time, we do not talk about specs, image, warranty or reliability records of the cars, but only about exterior design! The question: Did Kia designed a better looking car or Mazda did?

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By now, if reading KIA-WORLD blog regularly, you must have garnered enough of information and knowledge on the new Kia Soul, that you could sell the car to a potential customer right out of bed.

By adding dozens of images to the blog and throughout an extensive talk about variety of available accessories that Kia offers to the customers, we have all come pretty familiar with the Soul.

We also checked at the inside of the Soul several times and there we found that the ergonomically designed interior houses some very unique toys that you can hardly find in any other car these days, especially when mass produced.

One of the toys (special features) that needs to be mentioned is the Sound Sensitive Mood Lightning system -SSML. The SSML system features adjustable LED lighting rings around each of speakers installed to the front doors. By turning the radio unit on, the red-orange speaker LEDs react and start pulsing in time with the rhythm of the music. (more…)

When it comes to brand new Kia cars, South Koreans are a lucky nation! They always get them first. While we will have to wait until the early of next year to get the hands on the segment busting Kia Soul crossover, Koreans get them already.

The Soul has been on sale in Korea since mid September and according to reports, the car has experienced a strong demand. We were informed that more than 2,000 units were sold already. By the end of this year, Kia plans to sell 18,000 Souls in it’s home market.

In Korean market, the Soul crossover is offered in various colors, graphic designs and exterior and interior options that enable buyers to personalize their own vehicle. Some of them can also be seen on images posted here. [Photosource: Soulclub.kr]

Click image to enlarge!

We have already seen numerous photos and reports from Kia’s stand in Paris, but we never get enough, do we?

Well, the 18-day auto show is still going on and is very much alive. Therefore we will continue posting interesting Kia news reports from the event. Here is our latest one, coming from the Soul zone. This time, it’s not a video report, but a simple image review of all different Kia Souls showcased at the show.

As you already know, Kia has put seven different Soul models on display. All Souls displayed are the top-of-the-range models and display some very unique exterior and interior accessories. They also highlight a wide variety of styles, which customers will be able to choose for their new Kia Souls. Please, have a look…

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Just recently I came across a dyno graph that shows performance statistics for the 2,0L CRDI diesel engine equipped with K&N filter and ECU (engine control unit) upgrade. With such an upgrade, Kia’s most powerful four-cylinder diesel engine gains a lot in terms of power and torque. After the upgrade, horsepower rating for the engine jumped from 143hp to a respectable 190hp, while it’s torque increased to 316lbs/ft!!

Performance figures can bee seen on the graph which shows comparison in engine’s power from before and after it’s upgrade. As I already mentioned, the upgrade includes a K&N air filter and ECU upgrade. The ECU (engine control unit) comes from UK based TunIt company specialized to provide efficient and adaptable methods of enhancing vehicles performance (power and torque) without the need to alter the vehicle’s original equipment or programming.

This engine was, reportedly, installed to the Pro_cee’d and the package has resulted in some excellent performance. The figures for the engine look impressive, but what is more astounding is it’s drivability. Lots of torque is available from very low down, making it a very drivable and quick car.

I could not find any information for the 0-100 km/h run, but those who got behind the wheel of the upgraded pro_cee’d, state the car is very quick through gears and certainly, anyone would be more than happy with it’s performance. (more…)