Kia expands with new flagship

srobertson

Last June I test drove my first Kia, the Optima, and those of you who remember that review will recall how impressed I was with that Korean-built mid-size sedan. Last week I had an opportunity to spend a day with Kia's new flagship, the Amanti, and I'm just as impressed.

A bit of history

The Kia story begins in 1944 with the founding of a factory focused on bicycle wheel manufacturing. Within a year, the Seoul, Korea, factory was laying the groundwork for what would become a major bicycle manufacturing operation. In the 1960s the company moved into the manufacture of motorscooters, then three-wheeled delivery vehicles. By the early 1970s, Kia was building trucks, and as the decade came to a close, Kia was producing the Peugeot 604 and Fiat 132 for the Asian market.

The 1990s saw Kia enter the North American market with the Avella, which we knew as the "Ford Aspire," and by 1994 --- Kia's 50th anniversary--the automaker began selling the Sephia under its brand name.

The Amanti is the vehicle Kia hopes will attract buyers currently considering Toyota's Avalon, Ford's Crown Victoria and Buick's LeSabre. Amanti offers a good dose of luxury, while still retaining the value for which Kia has become reknowned.

Good impressions

I'll tell you right now I was impressed with the Optima before I even saw one. Photos of the little limo have been floating around for months, and to my eyes this is a handsome car. The body style is elegant, with separate, round headlights and lines that sweep back through the hood, like that of the Jaguar S-Type. Kia's literature says it wanted to give the Amanti a bold look and keep it from looking like a "cookie-cutter car," and the result is stately, with an upright grille and proportions similar to the current Lincoln Town Car.

I opened the driver's door to reveal a tasteful interior that reminded me of a German sedan in many ways. Electric power seat controls are arranged on the cabin doors a la Mercedes. Crisp edges on the door moldings and instrument panel say "BMW." A large analog clock set in a chrome bezel occupies the center of the panel, and the center console flows gracefully up from between the two front bucket seats to meet it. A band of imitation wood trim circles the cabin just above the leather-wrapped steering wheel, and above that, designers have thoughtfully used dark materials -- a lighter color would have created too much glare for this test driver. Below the wood trim, for variety, Kia used a lighter gray material. The combination was visually interesting, without creating safety issues. The Amanti includes such luxury features as a 270-watt Infinity sound system, one-touch up-and-down windows and a trip computer with LCD display.

Kia is eager to tell you that the front seats offer more head and leg room than any other full-size sedan, while the backseat offers more headroom than most competitors. Amanti is 196 inches long and 73 inches wide, which makes it four inches longer than Toyota's Avalon, but four inches shorter than a Buick LeSabre, one foot shorter than a Chrysler Concord and a foot and four inches shorter than a Ford Crown Victoria. It's about an inch wider than the Avalon as well, but a whole five inches narrower than the Ford. Amanti's wheelbase is three inches longer than the Toyota's but shorter than the others are. Its luggage capacity of 15.5 feet is comparable to the Toyota's but cannot match class-leading Crown Victoria's 20 cubic feet. In the rear seat area, Amanti has slightly less legroom than its competitors, but is still adequate at 37 inches.

The Amanti is rated as a five passenger, while the Buick, Chrysler and Ford all have seating for six. And finally, believe it or not, the Korean import outweighs all of its competitors, except the Crown Victoria, which at 4,057 pounds, beats it by some 30 pounds!

Driving the Amanti

On the highway the Amanti does not disappoint, except maybe in the horsepower department, where 195 ponies is not a lot of power to move over 4,000 pounds of weight. The 3.5-liter engine drives the front wheels through a smooth and satisfying five speed automatic transmission that can be shifted sequentially with the console-mounted lever. It gets 17 mpg in the city and 25 mpg on the highway, and should go 315 miles between fillups, thanks to its 18 gallon fuel tank.

I drove the Amanti over to Carbondale, and wished the old Mississippi River bridge was still available for test drives -- it provided the perfect surface to reveal rattles and suspension noise. Lacking that, there are several railroad crossings to traverse, and the Amanti was as composed and quiet as other vehicles at its price. Wind noise was minimal, and engine sounds did not intrude into the cabin, except under hard acceleration.

Of course, no discussion of Kia would be complete without mentioning its generous 5-year/60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty coverage and 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain coverage. My test vehicle had state-of-the-art safety features, including front and side airbags, side-curtain airbags and active headrests. It listed for $26,530, and can be seen at Auffenberg Kia on South Kingshighway.

Steve Robertson of Robertson's Creative Photography is a car enthusiast and former staff writer/photographer for the Southeast Missourian.