Kia CUB Concept at the Seoul Motor Show 2013

Hey Guys
At the Seoul Motor Show (March 29th - April 7th) a nice compact debuted, the Kia CUB Concept. It's a four-door coupe with rearward-opening rear doors.

The CUB concept was designed at the Kia headquarters in Seoul, under the direction of Chief Design Officer and President Peter Schreyer. It was designed with a clear focus on driving performance and practicality with the vision to generate an emotional and feel-good responsoe. Said Thomas Oh, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Kia Motors Corporation.

With his over-lucky grin I would totally love to have more Cars like this on the roads, instead of howling faces and design-accidents all over.

Cars are fun, and so they should look happy as well!

Besides the happy face the two-point LED headlamps, the 19-inch alloy wheels and the „a bit like the Audi A3's back“ catched my eyes. And of course the loss of the B-pillars in order to install the rearward-opening rear doors. The smooth exterior in combination with minimum-drag wing mirrors and automatic touch-type door handles are promissing a really low drag coefficient.
A two-colour paint finish with sporty stripe hints at the CUB’s high-performance potential, while the car’s broad track gives it an imposing stance.

The interior is promissing as well. Minimalistic (with no function-bla-overload, thankfully!) but up to date.
As well as a steering-wheel, there is a DIS (Driving Information System) controller connected to a gesture camera which provides easier operation while driving. With well-defined motions, drivers can set up each menu on the centre display.

Under the hood there is no Electric Engine or an Hybrid-thing, no there is a 1.6 litre GDI (Gasoline Direkt injection) engine, known from the new european Kia pro_cee’d GT and cee’d GT. The turbocharged babe produces 51 per cent more power (204 ps) and 60 per cent more torque (265 Nm) than a regular one. In combination with a six-speed manual transmission it accelerates to 62mph (100 km/h) in 7.7 seconds and reaches it's Top Speed at 143 mph (230 km/h).

At present there are, unfortunately, no plans to put the Kia CUB concept into volume production. But I can't wait for the moment the CUB's Design Language finds its place in a real production model.

Lisa