Kia’s new chassis guru has marked out the Kia Soul hatchback as the car the Korean brand hopes can take on MINI.
Albert Biermann, recently appointed as Kia and Hyundai’s new Head of Vehicle Test & High Performance Development after running the engineering teams at BMW’s M performance division, admitted to Auto Express that he was a big fan of the Soul.
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“For me the Soul is a really fancy looking, fun, young car,” Biermann said. “When you drive it, it’s not as agile as it looks – the steering is a little slow, so this is something I’d like to improve for the future. You can expect the Soul to become fun to drive.”
Biermann confirmed that Kia sees the Soul as a hatchback rather than an SUV, leaving the way clear for Kia’s new Nissan Juke rival, which will be based on the Nero concept car from 2013. And he hopes to be able to spread the Soul’s appeal outside of the US where’s it’s a big-selling cult car to rival the likes of the MINI and Fiat 500, possibly with greater personalisation options.
“The Soul has soul,” said Biermann. “It’s its own type of car with its own character.”
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