{"id":800495,"date":"2019-10-18T12:30:42","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T18:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=373183"},"modified":"2019-10-18T12:30:42","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T18:30:42","slug":"mountain-wheels-turbo-powered-kia-soul-keeps-the-weird-alive-in-vibrant-redesign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/mountain-wheels-turbo-powered-kia-soul-keeps-the-weird-alive-in-vibrant-redesign\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain Wheels: Turbo-powered Kia Soul keeps the weird alive in vibrant redesign"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The flashy 2020 Kia Soul GT line features a 201-horsepower turbo engine and sharper looks than its predecessors, plus on-board disco lighting. <\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

In a time when automotive design has increasingly morphed
\nthe looks of nearly every SUV into a largely homogenous blend of smoothed
\ncurves and squint-eyed headlamps, it\u2019s nice to see things get weird once in a
\nwhile.<\/p>\n

If you remember a decade ago, the market was briefly flooded
\nwith a series of small and very strange vehicles that seemed like the kinds of
\nthings you\u2019d see on the highways in Japan. Oddities like the Nissan Cube and
\npretty much every member of the Scion family might have disappeared, but the
\nsuper-angular and highly distinctive Kia Soul found a niche in North America \u2014
\nno telling if the hamsters in the ad campaigns helped.<\/p>\n

For its third-generation 2020 models, the Soul has received
\na makeover from the ground up, taking the vehicle\u2019s basic toaster oven\/\u201cStar
\nTrek II: The Wrath of Khan\u201d-<\/em>era shuttlecraft outline and
\nconsiderably jazzing things up, so much so that it virtually becomes a
\ndifferent vehicle in its various iterations.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve driven the Soul\u2019s hyper-stylized and urban showoff GT line
\nedition twice this year, both this summer on the Texas Gulf Coast and more
\nrecently back on the roads of Colorado.<\/p>\n

For those perhaps more focused on Colorado-styled adventure
\nlifestyle, Soul is also available in an X-Line edition, which adds body
\ncladding, heavier arches around its fenders, fog lights and special 18-inch
\nwheels to give it a more earthy look. There\u2019s also a flashy EX Designer
\nCollection edition and, if you happen to live in California or Oregon, you can
\nalso get the 111-mile-range Soul EV all-electric.<\/p>\n

My $28,710 Soul GT-Line still had a lot of interesting stuff
\ngoing on, from its massive, roof-reaching rear brake lamps and its new,
\nvirtually flat rear tailgate and rear profile, to a super-glossy grille that my
\nTexas counterparts might believe is embedded with the U of T Longhorns logo.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t speak to that issue, though I can certainly attest
\nthat it is a sharp-looking little machine that does a great job of chucking
\nitself along, despite its relatively diminutive size \u2014 having grown just over 2
\ninches to 165.2 inches overall, still 63 inches high and carrying a curb weight
\nof just 2,844 pounds.<\/p>\n

While up-front comfort, head space and overall room are
\nadequate, I cannot say it is particularly gigantic inside for rear passengers
\n(rear legroom has actually decreased for 2020). A shelf-styled tonneau cover
\nbehind the rear seats means just 18.7 cubic feet of storage, but you can drop
\nit and access 23.4 cubic feet, and if you flatten the rear seats and chuck out
\nthe tonneau entirely, it will amazingly suck up more than 62 cubic feet of
\ncargo.<\/p>\n

Power options include both the standard 2.0-liter
\nfour-cylinder, mated to either a real six-speed manual or a new electronic CVT
\ntransmission, producing 147 horsepower, or the 1.6-liter turbo four-cylinder I experienced
\non both of my drives, topping out at 201 horsepower.<\/p>\n

The turbo comes connected to a seven-speed, dual-clutch
\nautomatic transmission that presented possibly the most problematic portion of
\nthe new Soul\u2019s experience. You\u2019ll frequently feel like you\u2019re disconnected,
\neven hesitating uncomfortably while trying to get it into reverse and backing
\ninto a parking spot \u2014 blurtiness that\u2019s enhanced by an overly intrusive
\nautostop feature for the tiny engine.<\/p>\n

In pure highway travel mode, things largely smooth out, and
\nyou can access all of that power quite easily and confidently. Ride is solid,
\nhandling very sporty and the overall experience is fairly well-sorted for a
\nsmall vehicle.<\/p>\n

Kia still seems to anticipate that Soul customers are
\nlooking for something different than your average ordinary compact
\nquasi-crossover, and to that end, the looks and the light show inside match the
\ncar\u2019s style-forward exterior.<\/p>\n

I was making a night drive home when I first noticed the
\nin-cabin disco mood lights flashing along in time with my soundtrack on the
\nHarmon Kardon stereo. I did not opt to change between modes (which include
\nRomance, Midnight City and the popular Hey! Yo!). Maybe this is the kind of
\nthing you are going to dig.<\/p>\n

Colored inserts on the tops of the doors look like
\nSpider-Man\u2019s shoulders; a flat-bottomed race wheel, kidney-shaped air vents and
\na Mini Cooper-styled central pod of navigation and radio controls also added to
\nthe charm. I also appreciated the ability to bring up three smaller displays on
\nthe 10.25-inch navigation screen.<\/p>\n

Andy Stonehouse\u2019s column \u201cMountain Wheels\u201d publishes Saturdays in the Summit Daily News. Stonehouse has worked as an editor and writer in Colorado since 1998, focusing on automotive coverage since 2004. He lives in Greeley. Contact him at rossandrewstonehouse@gmail.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The flashy 2020 Kia Soul GT line features a 201-horsepower turbo engine and sharper looks than its predecessors, plus on-board disco lighting. Courtesy photo In a time when automotive design has increasingly morphed the looks of nearly every SUV into a largely homogenous blend of smoothed curves and squint-eyed headlamps, it\u2019s nice to see things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-800495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 06:44:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}