Lotus adds Soul to all-new Kia

If you want help selling your Soul, who better to lend a hand than Lotus? Kia has turned to the legendary engineering firm to work its magic on its forthcoming supermini-MPV.

We drove the car in October 2008. In response to our findings, Norfolk based Lotus has been quietly creating a unique ride and handling package to help the new car cope with British roads. “This is the first Kia to have been developed specifically with UK drivers in mind,” said a spokesman.

“It has secretly been on test here since late 2008, and evaluation has been fed back to the factory in Korea, as well as to research and development teams in Europe.” Kia claims Lotus’ input has resulted in changes to the suspension settings.

“These mean the Soul is more compliant with UK roads, adding refinement to the ride, yet allowing the dampers to do more work under the chassis,” the spokesman added. He told us the result is one of the most complete cars Kia has produced, with individual suspension set-ups for Europe, the US and UK. The car arrives in showrooms here in March – but it won’t be the only collaboration between Kia and Proton-owned Lotus.

The two firms joined forces when buying the rights to the Elan in the mid-Nineties, and the Kia spokesman continued: “All models heading for the UK market will get individual attention from Lotus as part of the final tuning package.”

A replacement for the Sorento SUV and a new mini-MPV are both due here later this year.