Kia cars, there’s a whole world out there

In Kia, Short Cuts by Jonathan Humphrey

On spending self-isolation time looking at Kia, worldwide there’s another range of cars we just don’t get here, large and small from diminutive city cars to V8 luxury saloons, monstrous eight-seater SUVs to battery electric vehicles.

Kia sold thousand of cars in the UK and millions of vehicles worldwide in 2019, 2.77m in fact, with 5000 dealerships in 180 countries. The market is quite staggering, this is what we’re missing.

Kia K900 – An appealing luxury saloon and Kia’s flagship on sale mostly in Korea and North America. With a 5.0-litre V8 engine, the most powerful so far from Kia, another powerplant used is the 3.3 T-Gdi V6 found in the high-performance Stinger.

Kia Seltos – A distinctive New SUV launched in 2019, sporty looks, in a compact SUV, the Seltos is built in India and Korea.

Kia Ray EV – Korea’s first electric vehicle, I remember this popular car from my trip to Seoul last year. Slightly odd, bit likeable, powered by a 16.4 kWh lithium-ion polymer battery, an ideal city car with a range of 86 miles.

Kia Soul GT-Line – it’s just not sold in Europe as we have the electric Soul EV Read Our Review Here. Available in GT-Line trim this sporty Soul comes with a pokey 201 horsepower 1.6-litre turbocharged engine, 18″ alloys and red accents and redesigned front, rear and sills.

Kia Telluride – One of my favourites, the largest passenger car built by Kia. A full eight-seater with active on-demand all-wheel drive, powered by a 291hp 3.8-litre V6. The massive Telluride is one of three finalists in the 2020 World Car of the Year awards.

Kia Rio – The supermini Kia is popular in the UK as a 5-door, but in some markets as a four-door saloon.

Kia Mohave – Named after the driest desert in North America. Tough and rugged, not just another SUV in the Kia range, available with a V6 3.8-litre petrol or V6 3.0-litre diesel.

Kia GT420 – A technical tour de force. It was built from the first pre-production Stinger. Expertise came from Kia’s UK, pr, press garage and technical teams with help and advice from the Hyundai tech centre in Germany. This track prepared Stinger has been extensively tuned with a whopping 422hp and 560Nm of torque.

Kia Cadenza/K7 – Made its debut at the 2020 Chicago Auto Show. A premium Sedan powered by a smooth 3.3-litre V6 with 290hp and loaded with tech and modern features, luxurious, quiet and composed.

Kia K2700 – It’s not just cars, a Kia commercial vehicle, the K-series truck with more than adequate loading capacity and a low-height truck bed for loading and unloading.

More info on the Kia Global range of vehicles can be found at Kia.com/Worldwide

Jonathan Humphrey

The man from Drive.co.uk

After many, many years of being passionate about cars, spending too much money on cars and too much time driving. I now spend my time running and developing Drive.co.uk and creating a bold expressive new motoring lifestyle website along with some very good writers.

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