Kia
Driven: 2010 Hyundai Tucson
The canyon roads in and around Beverly Hills, California, provide some of the best driving scenarios in the country. Long stretches of tight corners mixed in with rapid elevation changes make for a challenging and fun day of motoring, and give us the ability to really wring out our vehicle of choice—immediately pointing out any flaws in suspension tuning, balance, power delivery, shift fluidity, and overall grace. You really want a Lotus Elise for times like this. You can imagine our surprise when Hyundai chose these roads as the testing grounds for the all-new 2010 Tucson crossover.
2012 Kia Forte Koup May Get Turbocharged
Just yesterday, we posted our list of cars that are all bark and no bite. The good folks at Kia must have an ear to the ground, as the Forte Koup may be getting a turbocharger for the model year 2012, Edmunds reports.
List: Ten Cars That Are All Bark And No Bite
In automotive terms, a “sleeper” is a car that doesn’t look like it’ll do much damage, but once it hits the road, it’s a real performance dream. Think of the Mazdaspeed3 or BMW 335d—two cars that don’t look all that vicious but are really stunning machines to steer. These cars, however, are just the opposite.
Baby Kia, Born In Kia, Gets Free Kia
A Kia vehicle, a Carens to be precise, doubled as a delivery room recently in the UK. The baby girl, whom the parents named Kia, was born on the way to the hospital.
Driven: 2011 Kia Sorento
To say that Kia has made a lot of changes to the Sorento for the 2011 model year doesn’t quite capture the spirit of it. It’s roomier, lighter, more efficient, offers different powertrain options, and is built in the U.S. to boot. While it is by all means a crossover, Kia has tried to keep the new Sorento from falling in with the rest of the herd, and has created what promises to be a formidable competitor in the otherwise dreary and uninspired segment of affordable CUVs.
Driven: 2010 Kia Forte
While sitting around a candlelit table at Chandler’s Crabhouse in downtown Seattle, we talked with other journalists about our recent drive in Kia’s all-new Forte sedan—the replacement for the long-running Spectra. We discussed our generally lukewarm driving impressions, but still resolved that the Forte is a good competitor in the compact segment. One colleague said, “If I only write about the drive experience, it could come off as a bad review—but it isn’t actually a bad car at all.” So stay with us here, because while there may not be any juicy, exciting, sports-car-type bits about the Kia Forte, it’s still a perfectly adequate player in a segment that needs to appeal to the widest variety of shoppers. Think about the Nissan Sentra, Toyota Corolla, and Ford Focus sedans—these cars are tragically vanilla, but they still sell in droves. And so the Kia Forte comes to town, bringing with it a bigger pile of standard equipment, attractive design, and a very low price point. None of these cars are particularly exciting, and the Forte still manages to seal up the whole compact sedan package better than these aforementioned competitors.
First Look: 2010 Kia Forte Koup Debuts In NYC
Kia debuted their new Forte sedan at this February’s Chicago Auto Show, but we were hoping to see some more evolution of the Kia Koup Concept come through into production. Thus, a two-door Forte with the Koup name was brought for all to see at the New York Auto Show, squarely aimed at the Honda Civic, Ford Focus, and Scion tC.
Driven: 2010 Kia Soul Sport
When an automaker launches a new vehicle, there’s usually a lot of corporate enthusiasm built in. All of the engineers, executives, and public relations people get really excited about their latest and greatest offering, and in turn, they hope that the automotive press feels that excitement, too. The Kia people are no different in this regard but, given the automaker’s rather bland current lineup, it’s been harder for them to sell it.
Driven: 2009 BMW 330d
Just as we recently wrote about the new BMW 7-Series, the midlife fifth-generation 3-Series also makes its first impressions with its exterior and passenger cabin. What’s different in the case of the E90 3-Series four-door is that the all-new version introduced in 2005 has been an enthusiast favorite, whereas the 7-Series has received little else but sharp ridicule for its exterior design and the horrid earlier versions of the iDrive system, since going on sale in 2000.
Driven: 2009 BMW 7-series Gives Less Bangle, More Bimmer
This was an incredible sensation we have to tell you about first. We’ve melted tires and drifted BMW M3s, M5s, and M6es without any effort whatsoever. We tried getting the 128i or 135i to do these things and it wasn’t easy. We tried the 335i and it’s just too composed to make it easy, though it can be done under certain circumstances. Bottom line is that BMW makes cars that must seize the driver’s heart and soul without much ado. They should goad us to play.
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