Comparison Tests
From the February 2014 Issue of Car and Driver
TESTED
Lately, the car market’s bottom end has been growing faster than a pregnant Kardashian’s. In the past decade, cars sized tiny and tinier have increased their share of the market by some 50 percent. Fierce competition in the cheap seats has fostered a boom in innovation and variety, including a new subset that we think of as the IKEA class: rectilinear compacts offering budget-minded buyers distinctive, modern style and practicality.
The Scion xB kicked off the IKEA class in 2003, but the arrival of the Kia Soul in 2009 gave the segment its biggest hit to date. Kia now sells more than 100,000 of its box-that-it-came-in hatchbacks a year. Renewed for 2014, the new Soul looks an awful lot like the old Soul but shares not one body panel with its predecessor. The naming convention of IKEA’s furniture lines might seem odd outside Scandinavia, but the Soul is Kia’s best attempt at mirroring the likes of Esbjörn and Sångfågel. The top-level trim tested here is a Soul! (say “Soul Exclaim”) painted “Alien II” green and loaded up with every major option, including the “Whole Shabang” [sic] package, which includes heated and ventilated front seats, heated rears, and a heated steering wheel. All that Vittsjö pushes the price from the Soul’s $15,495 entry point to $26,195.
We managed to avoid crashing the Soul! and the 500L into any displays. If only we could operate IKEA’s crazy four-caster shopping carts as expertly.
Fiat’s 500L makes its debut for 2014. While its name is derived from that of Fiat’s one other U.S. offering, and it wears a similar moustache badge, it’s built in a different factory. The L comes from Serbia instead of Italy or Mexico on a different platform that Fiat calls “small-wide.” (Better than “short-fat.”) It does, however, borrow the 500 Abarth’s turbocharged 1.4-liter MultiAir four-cylinder. The base Pop trim starts at $19,995, but upgrade to the top-of-the-line Lounge model and add in a few lingonberries like a two-row sunroof and a Beats Audio system, and you end up at $28,245.
We’ve omitted the Scion xB. It has been dead to us since its 2008 redesign, when it abandoned its roots. And we expect the Nissan Cube to be dead to, well, everybody in the near future. Mini’s Countryman is an obvious competitor, but the company couldn’t furnish one with front-wheel drive. Which leaves us with these two IKEA-class cruisers, which we’ve taken to the very halls of their inspiration. We’ll see if they can muster all the flair of a $565 living-room set, along with the cargo capacity to haul it all home.
