Kia - You've grown on me

It has taken about 15 years, but you are getting there

4y ago
45.1K

Kia has flown under my radar for many years. When I was growing up, absorbing all that the motoring world had to throw at me, Kia produced some of the worst cars you could buy in the UK.

The two that I noticed, before switching them off my radar for many years, were the Kia Pride and Kia Sportage. Kia must have had an ironic names policy in the late '90s.

Pride? Really?

Pride? Really?

I refuse to believe that anyone at Kia showed an ounce of pride in their base model. If anyone finds a review of this car above 1 out of 5 stars, I'll eat my hat. Even upon release the car looked outdated.

The Kia Sportage sticks out in my head as it was one of the worst-performing cars in the ownership surveys of a variety of magazines. Even the stock Wikipedia image above has rust on the bonnet.

In the years after the Sportage, I turned Kia off my radar as much as I could, only witnessing their TV adverts where they would shove a 700-year warranty down my throat. As a 15-year-old, that didn't really get my engine going.

Fast forward 13 years and Kia are appearing on my radar again. Large parts of my brain are telling me that I should ignore them. My brain is flashing up warning images of the Kia Pride as a gag reflex. However, the concept cars that Kia have produced in recent years have almost eradicated any horrendous lasting impression that their '90s portfolio scarred me with.

Here is a screenshot of their current collection, minus the upcoming Stinger GT.

I can't really fault it aesthetically. They are all, pretty much, stylish cars.

The quality of Kia cars when I was young was truly awful. However, recently, I regularly hear Kia owners discussing how impressed they are with the car's quality, and their 700-year warranties make sense.

I know they aren't competing with the top German brands, but they are approaching them at a fast pace.

Kia hasn't tackled performance cars too much over the years, but they are delving into the market more and more. When purchasing a performance car in the mass market, the aesthetics do play a huge role in the final decision to buy. It is both a driving experience and an owning experience people are after and Kia are starting to look like one of the more stylish brands out there.

Not in a million years would I have thought I'd type that last sentence.

The Kia Picanto arrived in 2004 and no-one noticed. It was just another filler to the huge baby-hatch market. The 2017 Picanto looks pretty damn good. Aggressive lines and sporty nuances make this an attractive prospect to first time drivers.

The Kia Pro-Ceed GT, despite having a shit name, looks the absolute business. This was the first Kia that I really started to want. Every part of me is screaming "run, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction," but I just can't help it, I WANT A KIA.

The Kia Stinger GT, due out next year, has all the potential to delete 30 odd years of crap that Kia has produced since it started in the automotive industry. It can be a brand-maker with its 370bhp twin-turbo V6 petrol engine.

It took Skoda a long time to banish their crap cars to history and I think Kia have almost done the same.

They can finally have some Pride in their range.

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Comments (43)

  • What happened too the 200 MPH F40..... OHH yous where paid mega bucks for this...... Its okay I understand 👌👌👌

      4 years ago
  • KIA started to turn around and be good cars after the brand hired Peter Schreyer, former AUDI designer. Since then the cars have only gotten better. They still are under greatly experienced managing with Schreyer successor Luc Donckerwolke, former Bentley.

      4 years ago
  • The stinger looks amazing. Believe you get some crazy warranty on all Kia cars too!

      4 years ago
    • Yes, a stylish coupe with the best name ever, and 7-years warranty. And having sat in several new Kias, I can testify that the quality of the bits feels more solid than a lot of Japanese and GM cars.

        4 years ago
    • V6 Twin turbo to match it's looks. This may be Kia's rise. It looks great and got the perfect engine to boot. What are the chances are it may be cheaper than a VW MK7 GTI?

        4 years ago
  • Very well stated! This article perfectly sums up how I feel about Kia too. I still laugh when I think of the Kia Sportage, a terrible name and horrible vehicle, bet everything I hear about Kia now is so positive and that Stinger really does look awesome although I'd rather see a trunk(boot) on it than that GT fastback, but still a great looking ride. Darn it Kia, who do I laugh at now?

      4 years ago
    • Quite easy... every new car from Japan...sometimes you can even cry when you see new Toyota without any ambition to look even good if not nice... They actually have great talent to kill every good car... Corolla, Lancer, Accord, Impreza......

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        4 years ago
  • Kia, the Denny's of cars.. you never plan on one, you just end up with one.

      4 years ago
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