Over the past couple of years Kia has improved leaps and bounds.  Customers have noticed and models such as the Forte and Rio have been selling like hot cakes.  So what does Kia do to the wildly successful Forte?  It redesigns it for 2013.  Picture below we have a leaked sketch of the four door sedan.  We love the arched cabin and the sleek windshield, but the best part of this design is the clear commitment that Kia has demonstrated to improvement. So as we near the end of 2011, we can look to the future of 2012 and beyond and smile.

From Stephen Williams at Advertising Age

Remember the Kia Sephia? Kia would prefer that you didn’t. The ’90s weren’t particularly kind to Korean carmakers — a reputation for shoddy quality didn’t help attract buyers to either Hyundai or its sibling Kia in the U.S. But what a difference longer-than-average warranties, loads of standard equipment, sexy styling and a few hamsters can make.

While Hyundai drastically raised awareness this year with its revamped Sonata and Elantra, Kia stole the spotlight with its CGI hamster spots for the Soul, which were created by David & Goliath, Los Angeles. The TV spots were awarded Automotive Ad of the Year by Nielsen Automotive Advertising, and in September Motor Trend placed the dancing creatures’ “Share Some Soul” video for the 2012 model its chart of top auto video ads, with 5.4 million views that month.

“We knew that the car would skew young, and we wanted to do something significantly different,” said Colin Jeffery, who led the creative team that developed the three hamster spots. One idea, he said, was “to reflect how people go through the daily grind … round and round.” Like hamsters.

The funky, boxy Soul has been a success since its debut in 2009, pushing the buttons of its target audience of budget buyers and young families with upmarket sound systems, robust engines and good mileage. And sales figures are indicative of a continued climb, at least through the end of this year. Through October, Kia tallied 405,095 vehicles sold, with the Soul accounting for more than 85,000 of those, according to data from Automotive News.

Come by Keffer Kia in Mooresville to check out a Soul.

Youtube video

By Zach Bowman at Autoblog.com

Kia is giving Korean small-car buyers something to smile about with the new Kia Ray subcompact. The vehicle looks to have taken a cue or two from its bigger brothers with stylized headlights and a very corporate mesh grille. We see plenty of Soul in the design, but there’s more to the boxy machine than a quick glance would suggest.

Look closely and you’ll note that the driver’s side wears two traditionally hinged doors while the passenger side boasts a sliding rear door akin to what we typically expect to see on a minivan. Why abandon symmetry? Kia says that the company wanted to give buyers more flexibility when it came to ingress and egress in tight parking spaces.

The design is also expected to give the pint-sized Ray more versatility than buyers are accustomed to from the segment. Right now, Kia says that the Ray is only slated to show up on Korean dealer lots, which means we won’t be seeing the vehicle on our shores anytime soon. No engine specifications have been released at this time, either, but we can imagine that the Ray won’t boast eye-popping performance.

The Kia Ray might not be coming to Keffer Kia in Mooresville tomorrow, but I’m sure this vehicle is what the US can expect in the future from Kia.