Kia Rio5: Nobody’s Laughing Any More
The Kia Rio has never earned much respect in North America. Considering that Kia once made, for Ford, the thoroughly awful Aspire and earlier the Festiva, perhaps that's no surprise.
But Kia is now owned by Hyundai and shares many of its platforms and mechanical components. What's more, it has a design department that's clearly been trained in the right schools. So I'm not surprised to see the new Kia Rio5 being praised by the media.
Motor Trend magazine selected it as a finalist for the Car of the Year Awards and now the folks at Edmunds.com have tested the Rio5 and they, too, had nothing but good words to say. (And for once, an Edmunds test is not overburdened with long-winded prose.) I've not driven the new Rio yet but I've tested the 2006 Hyundai Accent for About Cars and was much impressed. As the Rio5 uses the same platform and engine but features more attractive styling and me being a sucker for a pretty face, no doubt I'll join the long line of admirers when I do test one.
Comments
One Response to “Kia Rio5: Nobody’s Laughing Any More”
Leave a Reply
The Opel designed Korean built Pontiac Le Mans was not built by Kia. It was built by Daewoo. And GM should be smacked for using that name on such a lump of crap.
Kia used to build the Ford Festiva and later Ford Aspire, both versions of Japanese Mazdas, the 121 also known as the Kia Pride.