2015 Kia KX3 Concept Is Perfect For BRICs

SHAKESPEARE SPOKE of the infinite variety of life. Looney Tunes said expect the unexpected. I don’t think either would have foreseen in 2003 a cash-strapped Lego becoming the Mattel-vaulting phenomenon it is today. Lego started its rise when it bought rights to Star Wars to produce yellow-faced merchandise. Harry Potter soon followed. In fact, much of the popularity of Lego is founded on taking established products and given them the brick treatment. 

In making friendlier versions of established rivals, the strategy of Kia under design director Peter Schreyer is similar to Lego. Want a Golf but find it too stiff? Buy a C'eed. Corsa too conventional? Rio please. And why buy a clip-on Mondeo when you can have a silk-knit Optima? Each Kia model has a youthful vibrancy worthy of Lego, with details given product-like attention. It is a refreshing approach: Kia doesn't take itself too seriously, yet the professionalism of the design execution is self-evident.

The latest car, the KX3, seems likely to be the next Sportage and is the cutesy cover version of the Cayenne. Highly perched lamps, sunken bonnet and low grille faithfully ape Porsche proportions. The expression is fun toy, which could easily dissolve to spurious cheapness were Kia not so adept at generating bold volumes that warrant a sense of pride. 

The bodyside has a Rio-sourced bodyside with chunky arches, although the shoulder that Kia usually gets so right lacks a little assertion (budget-consciousness excuses the skinny chrome). Equally the back of the car, though pleasantly resolved, doesn't quite match the funkiness of the front. 

The small SUV is hot property in developing markets, yet there is still a motley crew of profferings. Ford blew it with the EcoSport; the 500X Fiat is for 500-fans only, and Dacia is a bit too Crocs for me. Only the Honda and Volkswagen offer any style. Everything is awesome for Kia, then? Not quite, but close enough. If Lego can up-stage Barbie, then Kia bettering VW is not such a distant fantasy.

2013 Ford Mondeo Realises It's No Longer 2013

IS THERE a car brand that you don’t like? One that really gets up your nose? It isn’t Skoda any more; you may not buy one but I dare you not to admire it. Lada still has some catching up to do, but under design director Steve Mattin that may happen sooner than you think. There are still one or two strange Korean brands in the shadow of Kia/Hyundai, and most of the Chinese brands coming this way still haven’t come this way.

I’m going to put my hand up and say Ford. It's a class thing and I’m a snob. A blue oval for blue collars, and a brand so blandly middle-of-the-road that Britain’s Labour party planted their 1997 revival around Mondeo Man. Those burly F150 pick-ups in Storage Hunters are driven by thick-necked thicko’s. Most non-gay car? Forget your Lamborghinis and Ferraris and such portents of power: if you want to say you’re straight buy a Mondeo. (This rather suggests that all those brickies now buying BMW 3-series are somewhat bi-curious, though its worth noting that FoMoCo is regularly in YouGov’s top 20 LGBT-friendly companies).

You may have spotted the new Mondeo a few years ago. Now, they have even decided to sell it. The defining styling element of the new Mondeo is a long, fast, shoulder line that apes the Audi A6. This is an effective tool to communicate maturity: maturity requires perspective denoted by distance, and a curved object viewed from afar will appear straighter. Thus straight lines imply greater maturity. Cutesy cars like the Ka at the infant end of the range are curvier. Junior, you see.

This perfectly taped crease imbues the car with poise, and leads to a front that takes the Ford face yet closer to Aston. Purist might baulk at copying, but as neither brand will trouble the other, Ford has leveraged a strong identity that is applicable to the global market.

So the theme is strong, but did the design department not benchmark a Kia Optima? Look at the wheel to body relationship of the Korean, and now the Ford: the Mondeo looks like a whale on a skateboard. I can only imagine it is a cost/CO2 thing; there is certainly the space for a larger diameter under that towering centre-line. The designers have worked hard to disguise the height in the sculpted bumper, and space-filling haunch feature. Park it next to an Audi however, and such is the importance of wheel and arch size, the gamely premium aspirations of the Ford wilt.

But I like the honesty of the Ford. It does not patronize the working class by providing utilitarian vehicles. It reflects their aspirations too, knowing that even those in flat caps have imagination and ambition. Widely recognized dynamic prowess shows commitment to the product, too. The Mondeo may not be all things to all people, but for hoi polloi its fine.