Kia just released a preview sketch of its new "Soul" concept car that will debut at the North American International Autoshow in January. Maybe I'm hallucinating a little, but I see an awful lot of similarity to the MINI Concept Frankfurt from a few months ago.







Looks like Kia believes imitation is the sincerest form of flattery....

 

man, if i could see the pics

 

Should work.

Also try this link to my blog: http://vinreddy.blogspot.com/2005/12/mini-vs-kia.html

vin.

 

I can't find any stories or images of this car on the internet. Are you sure this isn't just a photoshop?

 

Not a photoshop. The story came over the PR newswire last night and should be circulating through the usual media outlets in the next few days.

 

Two spoilers on the roof. . . that makes it twice as nice!

 

I'm sorry but as in the website: http://vinreddy.blogspot.com/2005/12/mini-vs-kia.html they have both the new MINI and the Kia Soul concept car. I see no resemblance.

MINI:




Kia Soul Concept: :impatient



As I said, I see no resemblance.

 

Are those spoilers or is it a sliding roof rack?

 

I think they are more like the sliding racks. I think it looks more like a small/mid SUV vs. a wagon that the new MINI is targeting.

In fact, it is hard to compare without a person standing next to it as reference, so cannot really tell how big it is, may be it is big, so it is not really like the MINI then.

 

I'm not seeing any resemblance either...but speaking of resemblance, see the attached...granted the size of the Traveller is much smaller than the Isuzu Kuraza, but if not for the rising roof line on the Kuraza, the silhouette would be very, very close.

 

That rising roof line looks interesting, like a bad photoshop job of attaching two cars together. BTW, the Kuraza is Infiniti, not Isuzu.

 

I totally agree. The Kia looks more like a small Aztec than a MINI.

 

Well, both are two-box cars, both have short hoods and have rather long, thin expanses of side glass with no visible pillars. The MINI doesn't have the wedge shape that the Kia does and there are lots of other obvious differences.

I always thought the Prius looks like a miniature Aztek.

Mark

 

I remember seeing that at the Detroit Auto Show last year. I stopped in the aisle and stared at it funny for a while with my friends trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Then i muttered something like...wtf did they do to a MINI? It's a good size SUV concept and it had all this interesting lighting inside, but yeah, in person, the outside of it looked like an odd giant MINI