Heart of the Soul

Two bulls are standing on a hill, grazing peacefully. The younger of the two sees a herd of cows in the meadow below, and says to the older bull: “Let’s run down the hill and have sex with a couple of those cows.” He replies: “No my boy, let’s walk down the hill and have sex with all the cows.”
What does this have to do with the new Kia Soul, described as an urban crossover utility vehicle?
Well, I resisted the urge to hurry a story together after attending the launch of the brightly coloured and decorated vehicles in wet, miserable Cape Town. (Why is everyone so mad about the Cape?) Anyway, I allowed the young bulls to run back to their newspapers and rush into print with fairly breathless reviews of the Soul.
Now it’s time for the old bull to walk down the hill.
The Kia Soul is certainly eye-catching. Apart from the bright colours and decals, it is unusually shaped, somewhat box-like with a high roofline. It looks a bit like a Daihatsu Materia, which can now take consolation from the fact that it resembles something else apart from a bread van.
That high roofline has obvious space advantages and at one stage, on an early-morning run to the airport from Franschhoek, four large men and overnight luggage fitted comfortably into a Soul. There would have been room in the back seat for another adult.
Also, the Soul will be a versatile vehicle when moving goods from one place to another: with the rear seats folded down the excellent rear headroom will mean you can move bulkier items than in, say, a conventional hatchback or even a big-booted sedan.
Although the ground clearance is a generous 165mm, the Soul has no other pretensions to being an offroader. It is a conventional front-wheel drive. But it has the advantage of looking as if it might be an offroader, and this is very sensible indeed. The lack of an all-wheel-drive system means it carries less weight, so fuel consumption is better (Kia claim 6.6litres/100km overall). Also, you don’t feel obliged to bash around in the bundu and can restrain yourself to mounting a high pavement while waiting to collect the kids. And of course the Soul costs a lot less than the soft-roaders it is targeting.
At five bucks less than R190 000 it comes in just above the most expensive Kia Rio, the 1.6 auto sport, which costs R187 995. The Soul is offered in only one model at the moment, a 1.6-litre five-speed manual, although a diesel version and an auto are on the horizon, and even an old bull like me was surprised at the price.
It seems like a lot for what you get. At sea level, where we drove it for about 80km, the Soul did not feel particularly peppy. One of the young bulls pointed out that maximum torque of 156Nm is achieved only at 4200rpm (max power of 91kW comes in at only 6300rpm) so you have to ride the Soul pretty hard for it to perform at its best.
Kia gives a 0-100km time of 10.4 seconds and a top speed of 177km/h, which sort of proves my point.
The Soul weighs a modest 1170kg so that’s obviously not the problem in the performance stakes. Clearly, that’s just not what this car is about.
Its important features include the eye-catching, rather attractive appearance, large headlights, bulging wheel arches, excellent space and the ease of getting into and out of a car that is higher off the ground than average, and has high-mounted seats too.
You get 16-inch alloy wheels (the spare is a steel spacesaver); a load area of 570litres with the rear seats folded down, as well as a tray under the luggage space; startlingly bright colours inside the ashtray and the cubbyhole; electric windows all round; electric power steering; air-conditioning; tinted glass with shaded windscreen band; central locking; ‘battery saver’ to prevent draining of the battery; electric heated door mirrors; special “Soul Glow” seating fabric;, a rear spoiler; anti-lock braking; electronic brake force distributor; and front and rear fog lights.

Zian van Heerden, sales director for KIA Motors SA, gives an insight into the heart of the Soul when he says it will attract attention to the brand.
Kia Motors SA CEO Ray Levin says the Soul is packed full of liberating ideas and yes, it has an iPod cable into which you can plug one of those handy devices, and control it with the steering-wheel-mounted dials and buttons of the sound system.
Kia describes this as a factory-fit RDS Radio/CD player with MP3 compatibility, plus USB, AUX and iPod connections in the centre console, speed-rated volume control, six audio speakers – one in each door and two tweeters – a 112 watts output, innovative PowerBass technology and a roof-top antenna. They add that the PowerBass system employs psychoacoustic audio technology to overcome the inherent challenges of an in-car sound system and deliver concert-hall quality.
Wow.
Back to that price issue. Kia list as their rivals the Nissan Qashqai 1.6 (R220 500), the Suzuki SX4 2-litre (R205 900), Daihatsu’s Terios 1.5 (R199 995) and Materia 1.5 (R164 995 – a full R25 000 less than the Soul!), the Honda Jazz Ex 1.5 (R187 900) and the Golf 1.6 Trendline (R214 400).
So, the Jazz that Kia see as opposition is cheaper than the Soul, in spite of Honda’s superior build-quality reputation. Okay, so the Golf costs R25 000 more – but it has the reputation that comes with being a VW.
Yes, Korean cars are increasingly gaining respect for the way they are made, and the Soul comes with a four year/90 000km service plan and a five-year/100 000km warranty.

Ray Levin must get almost the last words here. The Soul, he says, “will have an enormous effect on our sales in South Africa.”
And from us, the last words: Sincerely, good luck with that.