Picanto News: Picanto Gets Lower Emissions

With cost of ownership, fuel and road tax playing a major role in modern day car buying decisions, Kia have made moves to reduce the emissions on the facelift Picanto.

From mid-July all production of Picanto's will be four seaters as opposed to some of the range having 5. The move reduces the overall weight of the vehicle which in turn improves fuel consumption on both manual and auto derivatives whilst reducing CO2 emissions. As a result the manual version drops to just 118g/km CO2 bringing it into VED tax band B, which costs the customer just £35 per year.

The first production models come in the way of a new special edition - the Kia Picanto Chill.

Available as either a 5-speed manual or 4-speed automatic, the Picanto Chill gets air conditioning, remote central locking, full iPod compatibility and a choice of funky colours, including a unique Cool Blue paint finish.

Priced from only £6995, The Picanto Chill also becomes exempt from the London Congestion Charge in the planned changes to the system due for introduction in October 2008. The automatic remains in tax band C with CO2 of 143g/km, costing £120 per year.

Picanto News: Facelift Picanto Update

Kia have confirmed that the clear plastic lenses visible on the facelift Picanto wing mirrors are in fact indicator lenses, well spotted Kevin.

Although a Kia source did say that it will possibly be an option on the top of the range models and final specifications are yet be finalised for the UK.

On the subject of specification, a European website is reporting that a roof spoiler will be standard across the range, which extends across the full width of the car. Again we will have to wait and see.

In the meantime we'll keep the site posted with new information as and when it arrives.

Picanto News: Kia Continue £20 Marks & Spencer Test Drive Incentive

As we posted earlier, Kia are continuing with their incentivised test drive campaign which proved successful in the latter part of 2006.

The scheme, which offered a £20 Marks & Spencer voucher if you took a test-drive in a new Kia Picanto or other Kia model, resulted in over 11,000 test drive voucher downloads in 2006 and to date, more than 4000 redeeemed test drive vouchers, indicating the number of test drives taken.

Although the campaign in the 1st quarter of 2007 will largely be the same, Kia are modifying the creative message and the media placement to make the offer more bespoke to new car buyers.

More information on this offer visit the Kia website

Picanto News: Kia Sales Success Continues To Grow

With the new year well under way, Kia Europe published their final figures for 2006 reaching a grand total of 271,261 units.

This was however, 2% down on 2005, but was to expected due to 6 new product launches, product shortages, a new factory in Slovakia to rectify those product shortages as well the up and coming Ceed launch to contend with.

Top of the European charts as usual was the Picanto with 83,203 units sold - including more than 16,000 in Italy, the model´s biggest market.

"Kia´s strong 2006 sales performance in Europe during our year of consolidation again demonstrates how our products now meet the needs of European consumers," commented Mr Jean-Charles Lievens, Senior Vice President Kia Motors Europe. "More and more new customers are switching to the Kia brand and this is very encouraging for everyone in our expanding dealer network as we start the New Year."

For Kia, the top markets in Europe in 2006 were Spain (46,378 sales, up 2%), Germany (42,920), the UK (36,583), Italy (36,090), France (19,972, up 4%) and Netherlands (19,114).

Globally the Picanto achieved (130,169 sales) and was Kia's second best selling car.