It rattles as if the ground is slipping from under your feet, and some shoebox is tumbling down the stairs head over heels — that's a Kia Soul bouncing over tram tracks. We're heading "to the address" near Paveletsky railway station. There are plenty of tracks here, and they seem determined to shake every bit of soul out of the Soul. To convey what's happening in the cabin, it's enough to throw your hands up and start waving them wildly: the suspension itself is stiff, and combined with the "eighteen-inch" wheels, it's just brutal. Ouch... Ah... ow, hey... Oh! Oh! Oh!
Although the Soul doesn't seem huge, it's actually longer, wider, and taller than many B- and C-class hatchbacks, such as the Honda Jazz, Suzuki SX4, or Ford Fusion. This "cross-class" sub-mini-crossover even surpasses compact MPVs like the Nissan Note and C3 Picasso in dimensions, though the latter is 14 mm taller.
So, we have an orange camel on duty, our mission is to haul bags. By order of the management, I've put on a red cap with a pompom, glued on the most radiant smile instead of a beard, and I'm driving around Moscow in the Soul delivering gifts. In PR speak, this sounds like "congratulating our company's partners." We need to fit it all in two days (have they gone crazy?). With pre-New Year traffic jams at 9–10 points, any trip turns into drudgery. But my poisonous-yellow tea — with bagels: they gave us a fancy navigator, assigned a blonde Snow Maiden, and, of course, a festive Kia Soul. So we're rolling. Where is that damned Slivobogatyrsky Lane...
The cargo of our mission is seven bags: five heavy big ones and two smaller ones. What's inside, I never found out, but it's definitely not an awl.
The Soul has a windowsill instead of a trunk. Under it is an organizer and a space-saver spare. However, our shapeless gifts easily spread out in the 222-liter compartment. With the same number of boxes, this trick won't work.
"Annyeong, mannaseo bangapseumnida!" — in Korean, this means I'm truly glad to see it. It's pleasant to look at the Soul's youthfulness and zest. Its appearance makes you feel younger, and even if in my case it's a regression to an errand boy — I don't mind. A real production concept car, a tightly laced fashionable boot, and simply an unusual automobile. Here a sharp angle, there a playful rounding. And the sweetest candy taillights! Say what you will, but this is my design — flashy, somewhat risky, but not controversial. Okay, even if my task has a "hard-" prefix, such a handsome guy should smooth out difficulties into melodic hard rock. Like a fake Santa Claus from the Great Iron, I unquestioningly accept the picturesque Soul as my sleigh and shout to the snowdrifts a Korean greeting, "Sung Tan Chuk Ha!" The frightened Snow Maiden tries to escape into her soft Lexus.
In motion, the Soul somehow feels like a light car made of the same plastic as its interior. Although the car's weight — 1170 kilos — is nothing particularly remarkable.
Gorgeous 18-inch alloy hard wheels, stainless steel pipes as side steps and bumper guards, dragon stickers on the body — ideally, all this tinsel isn't meant for my Soul. After all, it's in the cheapest base trim, with a 1.6 petrol engine (124 hp) and a five-speed manual. The car was decked out with "foreign" attributes to turn the Soul into a Showl, that is, a show car for some holiday. But inside, my Soul remained pristine: without ESP, climate control, heated seats, flashy decorative trim, LED light show, sunroof, rear-view camera with a display in the cabin mirror, and something else, and more, and more. As if the counterfeit Santa Claus isn't even human.
- Inside, the smell doesn't hit your nose. It's spacious, especially overhead: you can sit in a top hat. The plastic is hard. The instruments are undoubtedly well done. The center console in the shape of an insole with a crater on top amused me a bit: in the top trim, there's a speaker there, but for me, it's a stand for a globe.
- The disco-stuffed interior of the richer version, I recall, irritated colleagues from other publications. I, however, looked at the untouched field of the base cabin and thought that these excesses are sorely missed — the mismatch with the shiny exterior makes you want to drive the Soul while being outside it, constantly glancing at how handsome it is.
For half an hour, we can't get out of Knyazesushilny Proezd onto Olovozhuyskoye Highway. The voice of Margaret Thatcher from the navigator has fallen silent. Idleness prompts me to look around. The mirror in the visor is the size of a kitchen TV. The overhead handle clicked. The insides of the glovebox and glasses case are blood-red — a car with lining, crazy! And the whole cabin could have been that color — that's what I was counting on. The ideal Soul should have a wild dance-floor interior, a 128-horsepower diesel, and a four-speed automatic! The very description of such a Korean car is impressive, and showing a live car at the same time should knock you into the snow. Meanwhile, people buy exactly the Soul like our test one, in the most stripped-down trim. There's one parked in my yard. The owner, a stern guy in a cap, looks like a military retiree. I thought about asking him, but stumbled over his hard gaze.
We got lucky with the weather: all our trips with Nastya Korolkova went at above-zero temperatures, practically not winter. Due to traffic jams on the first day, we only managed to deliver gifts to two addresses. The next morning, there was hope for corporate parties, for which people would leave their cars at home. Thanks to that, we completed the task in the dark, finally standing dead still with Moscow for about an hour and a half.
Arguing with the Snow Maiden about who hates New Year more is hindered by the roaring engine. Partly, the accelerator pedal is to blame — you have to get used to this touchy thing: barely feeling the sole's touch, the Soul lunges forward, apparently wanting to show its acceleration to a hundred. As if I haven't seen 11 seconds. The engine is noisy by itself, I won't lie. "Vreee, vreee," it bellows, and in the morning it's forgivable, but not in a Hard Day's Night. In the evening of a hard day, a duet plays on your nerves: the gear lever joins the engine, which instead of first gear (by the way, very short) goes into third or creatively annoys in other ways. The end of the cacophony can always be put by the clever brakes. I get out and slam the door: is it made of foil?
- Interior details are hard & soft. The gear knob is transparent and looks like glass; it begs for a crab in amber inside.
- The plastic door handle pulls from memory the phrase "treacherously cracked."
- The iPod connector is placed in a prominent spot — the Soul emphasizes that it's a music kiosk. True, the cable for the Apple player isn't provided in our trim.
Through the turnstile of the checkpoint, we squeeze onto the territory of a former factory. I imagine how furiously this turnstile spun at the start of a shift in better times. But the light steering wheel of the Soul, which instantly returns to "zero," it can never catch up with — a quirk of the electric power steering. Overall, the reactions are good, there's effort, so why isn't the steering wheel allowed to be adjusted for reach? Combined with the fact that the driver's seat provides only one service (it exists), my seating position turned out vague — I didn't sit, I resigned myself and almost got used to it. The photographer in the back seat wasn't cramped at all, though I note — a couple of times I heard the word "stool" from him.
The Soul logos on the seats, included in the "base," unfortunately, don't provide proper lateral support or lumbar support.
Having handed gifts to our friends from the companies Advert, AdWatch, and AdLabs, we wished them success in such a tough field as advertising. We told the employees of Media stars and Media Net, "May media buying bring you universal happiness," and to the smiling folks from MindShare and Code of Trade, we were too shy to advise making websites.
"Vreee!" — the engine perked up, it's the traffic light on Spasorvachnaya remembering us. If there's a fan club for jerking on a manual through pre-holiday traffic jams, please don't sign me up. Almost giving the last bag to a Christmas tree instead of our partner, I came to my senses at home exhausted. The hardcore experience changed my view of the Soul's magical lights, and it became clear why someone who drove the car before us had taped over the KIA logos outside and inside. It was an attempt to "hide Korea." And you can't hide it so easily. Despite all my unbiased attitude and lack of skepticism toward Korean cars.
- The immodestly sized mirrors show everything needed, and apart from the poor visibility through the tailgate, nothing hinders the view.
Appearance and impressions
The exterior design still pleases me. You can't call this car a "Mini for the poor" — the words just won't come out, although there are thousands of personalization options. First, the Soul is hard to call budget-friendly: prices start from 600 thousand and go up to 770. Second, my wishes to the engineers boil down to one clear word — easy: I want it neater, calmer, more practical, and, most importantly, softer. It's great that KIA has started singing its own song, but so far, instead of Heart, you hear hard. Third, the French promise to equip with a "robot" so far only the "manual" Citroen C3 Picasso. And if you need to deliver Chinese fireworks to witches for Halloween, you won't have to look for volunteers — here I am.
Prices for options
- A black glossy spoiler will cost just over 6,500 rubles.
- Side running boards cost about 17 thousand, bumper protection — about 15 thousand.
- Alloy wheels are sold at about 12 thousand per piece.
- Decorative stickers for the body — 13,400 rubles, and that's not cheap at all.
Technical content
It's hard to say that the Soul is built on some specific platform. As, indeed, is the case with many modern cars. The "cart" of this Korean beauty is a set of modules used in different models of the Hyundai-KIA concern. Front McPherson struts, rear torsion beam, and floor panels are from the tiny Hyundai i20. Something is borrowed from the Kia cee'd family. By the way, in wheelbase, the i20 yields to the Soul by only 25 mm — 2525 versus 2550.
If you look into it, the "soul" of the Kia Soul hatchback is not so young. The engines for the "Korean" are long-familiar. The petrol unit with distributed injection 1.6 (124 hp) and the diesel with common rail accumulator injection 1.6 CRDi (128) have been installed on the cee'd model for years. But unlike Europe, besides the 1.6-liter units, we were promised the top two-liter "four" with 143 hp. With it, as with the turbodiesel, a four-speed "automatic" can work, which is unavailable on the initial modification with the 124-horsepower engine.
Safety
In spring 2009, the Kia Soul passed a strength test under the new, stricter Euro NCAP methodology and earned the maximum five stars. The best result for the "Korean" is 87% for adult passenger protection. True, experts noted that the dashboard is dangerous for the legs of the driver and front passenger. The car was also fined for the driver's door opening slightly during a side crash test. The car got 86% for caring for small passengers and the coordinated work of electronic assistants. But the Soul won't spare pedestrians — the pedestrian safety level is estimated at 39%.
History of creation
The history of the Kia Soul hatchback began with the concept of the same name. It was shown in 2006 in Detroit as an idea of KIA's California design center, implemented jointly with the Korean company's divisions in Seoul and Europe. The concept was supposed to impress the public not only with its appearance (and it had a panoramic glass roof and rear doors opening against the direction of travel) but also with a futuristic interior built "around" the multimedia system.
The Kia Soul project was led by the Korean company's chief designer Peter Schreyer, who worked at Volkswagen from 1979 to 2006. Among his creations for the German concern are the first generation Audi TT, the "fourth" Golf, and the VW New Beetle. Schreyer's move to KIA was initially met with ridicule, but Peter set himself the goal of giving the Korean automaker a distinctive emotional style. The Soul, whose name echoes not only "soul" but also Seoul, is a vivid representative of the direction Schreyer chose.
In 2008, the Koreans showed three more Soul concepts — Diva, Burner, and Searcher (in the photo next to them is Peter Schreyer himself), very close to the production model, which debuted the same year in Paris.
In 2009, the Kia Soul became the first Korean car to receive the prestigious red dot design award for instant recognition on the streets and a successful combination of emotionality with functionality. True, it was an honorable mention, but, for example, the Mercedes E-class got exactly the same.
Behind the scenes
We had only one day for the photo shoot, and, of course, it started raining in the morning. Having no opportunity to take any normal shot except an interior one, we huddled into one of the Land Rovers participating in the photo session and turned on the TV. And there — "Top Gear. Russian version." Well, isn't that funny?
Because of the rain, the Soul had to be photographed under a bridge and in a tunnel. Of course, on the way from the car wash, the car got pretty dirty, and since all the water from five bottles was "guzzled" by the Land Rovers, nothing was left for the Soul except to scoop up some murky water from the Moscow River.
