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Kia Track'ster concept car (2012) first official photos

By Tim Pollard

First Official Pictures

06 February 2012 14:01

Kia will show the new Track'ster at the 2012 Chicago motor show. It's a concept car designed to show what a harder, faster Kia Soul hatch could be like.

Scant information is available at present, but Kia has confirmed the Track'ster was designed by Kia's Californian studio, led by Tom Kearns - and today it issued a new photograph of the Track'ster, after last week's design sketch.

Kia Track'ster concept car: a pocket rocket

The Track'ster has a 248bhp petrol engine, apparently. Enough to make this rollerskate a proper hot hatch tearaway, says Kia.

We're still not sure about the name, though: Kia loves a bit of grammatical violation, and the Track'ster has the same apostrophe nonsense as the Ceed range. CAR's sub-editors always remove the rogue apostrophe and don't allow the Cee'd style used by Kia...

It's a classic tactic to give an ageing model – the Soul is now four years old – a bit of a fillip. We hear development of the next Soul is well underway and it may be slightly less boxy, to swell its appeal globally.

Is that a shame, which may yet destroy the chunky appeal of the Soul? Or a clever marketing wheeze to broaden its customer base. We thought the Soul was deliberately more idiosyncratic, aimed at Mini buyers. Otherwise you'd just buy a Picanto if you wanted a sensible Kia supermini, wouldn't you?

Kia Soul convertible and hot hatch

The Californian studio was originally responsible for the Kia Soul hatchback; the American design team has also drawn up a Soul'ster convertible which is under assessment for final approval and production, according to Kia.

Americans bought 102,000 Souls in the US in 2011 – that's a record for Kia in the US.

There are, however, no plans for Track'ster production. Could be just the thing to give the Soul more sporting appeal.

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bertandnairobi says

RE: Kia Track'ster concept car (2012) first official photos

Indeed. The sketch looks promising and if those rear lights are located under the hatch-back glass pane then that´s really clever: fewer parts, smoother surfaces, fewer panel gaps. They do seem to be doing some very good work. Some of the other companies are making a big mistake keeping the hands of their designers tied. I expect Kia is giving some mainstream makers a really hard time, and not by using space age materials and unworkable new technology, just with good old, fashioned hot styling.

07 February 2012 12:15

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varunjk says

RE: Kia Track'ster concept car (2012) first official photos

I really love this design, but then I really, really do love Kia for the Automotive tour de force they have made themselves up into, from a perfectly mundane brand barely five years ago. It just shows. Whenever we criticize some new, cheap brand for their plain products, we may want to imagine that just the investment of the right designer and engineering team could easily turn them cool overnight. But for heaven's sake Kia, please do not 'sanitize' (or water down, excessively) this car for production. We've already seen the very cool No. 3 walk down from concept glitz to production groan.

07 February 2012 11:59

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V12 Migaloo says

RE: Kia Track'ster concept car (2012) first official photos

Is it me or is Kia actually bringing out new and interesting cars... I really like the look of the Soul, the Picanto and the Sportage, plus the new Optima looks decent as well, 5 years ago I would have laughed if I thought I would ever say that... Can't help but think if they had taken on Saab and let them use the platforms, engines etc, with a 5 year warrenty then you could see them become a real major player. The optima could easily be Saab'd, so too the Sportage and the Sorento as well.

06 February 2012 15:33

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varunjk says

RE: Kia Track'ster concept car (2012) first official sketch

I see: so you can have huge wheels without dramatically altering the car's ride height, in a nutshell. Smart. But somehow, the need to sketch cars with such huge rims is nonexistent. Maybe it looks a little chunkier and more imposing but since the wheels will never really make production, why waste a designers' unnecessary flourish on it?

04 February 2012 08:16

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Jonnyb1990 says

RE: Kia Track'ster concept car (2012) first official sketch

@varunjk I admit I'm only a design student, but the trend you speak of seems to exist for a few reasons. The reason most obviously at play here, is by cutting off the bottom of the wheel, you can keep the vehicle's true ride height, but it allows you to use enormous wheels to drag the visual wieght down and seemingly lower the vehicle.

It's basically a tool that can be used to alter a vehicle's proportions and graphical make-up; we'll just have to hope their team can transphere this into the clay, given their past efforts, I'm just hopeful they might.

03 February 2012 09:14

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