Road Test
Mobile luxury in Asia has always skewed slightly baroque. The region is one of the last bastions of the formal sedan, big and square and filigreed with chrome. Jaywalk any street in Tokyo or Seoul and you'll be dodging one, lace doilies draped over the headrests and gloved chauffeur behind the wheel.
In the 1970s, Toyota and Nissan plumped up their U.S. model lines by bringing over a few of these floaters in the form of the Toyota Crown and Cressida and the Datsun 810 (later the Nissan Maxima). A couple of years ago, a similarly eager-to-mature Hyundai brought us the XG350. Now, bright-eyed Kia, a subsidiary of Hyundai and just 10 years young in America, wants to frolic with the other senior citizens.
The Amanti is bigger than a Camry and base-priced in the mid-20s, right where the V-6 Honda Accord rear-ends the Toyota Avalon. Various angles suggest that tracing paper was put to a Buick LeSabre, a Jaguar S-type, and a Sunbeam waffle iron. There's enough sponge in the suspension to let drivers scoop up dimes off the road in tight right-handers. Let's give a Leisure World welcome to the Kia Amanti!
Kia's front men concede that America is not waiting breathlessly for a Korean Lincoln. The company's U.S. managers still dream about roadsters and pickup trucks. They planned to show a Sorento-based pickup concept at the Chicago show in February. They want Kia to lure the young and the reluctant to age. The redesigned 2004 Spectra promises to do that, with a slippery new five-door wagon in the mix and a catalog of hop-up parts planned.
Kia's assembled MBAs had their work cut out when the home office e-mailed to say the 4100-pound Kia Opirus executive barge was coming stateside bearing the new Amanti name. The two-plus-ton weight alone, the byproduct of thick steel and widespread cast iron, suggests the Opirus isn't exactly state-of-the-art carmaking. Our Amanti was a porcine 559 pounds heavier than the slightly smaller Lexus ES300 (August 2002).
Kia's U.S. branch suggested changes to the Opirus to suit Yankee driving tastes, including sharper steering. They also churned out rationales for a skeptical motoring media.
"I don't know of any company that's successful selling just entry-level cars," said Peter Butterfield, president and CEO of Kia Motors America. "You have to have a fairly wide spread of products."
"Most people think we just sell small cars to college kids," added Wally Anderson, vice-president of marketing. "So this is evolving the brand."
