It’s not unusual for an old car to continue be produced in developing nations long after its original run is over. The 1956 Morris Oxford famously became the Indian Hindustan Ambassador, for example, and was sold right up until 2014. The 1987-91 Mazda 121 was produced in both China and Iran well into the 2000s, but what was more surprising is this 1980s subcompact was sold in Western Europe right up until 2000.
It’s amazing how Kia was able to turn its image around. Today, a full lineup of handsome Kias are available with modern powertrains and safety features. But during the 1990s when the brand was establishing itself, its entry-level model in Europe was the 1987 Mazda 121, badged as the Kia Pride. The hatch was identical to the 121 but for some minor trim and badging, but select markets received this curious wagon version photographed for the Cohort by So Cal Metro in Prague.
Kia and Hyundai weren’t part of the same corporate family until 1998, and Hyundai’s rise to respectability was markedly different. Although they continued to use Mitsubishi components well into the 1990s, each Hyundai model received entirely new sheetmetal to go with its bargain basement pricing. The Pony/Excel, for example, had a body designed by Giorgetto Giugario.
By the late 1990s, Hyundai was making even more of an effort with styling, as exemplified by the striking ’95 Elantra, ‘98 Sonata and ‘96 Coupe/Tiburon. But Kia, perhaps due to a smaller budget, plodded along with the dated Pride at the bottom end of its range, although it added the more contemporarily-styled Mentor/Sephia and Sportage SUV in the mid-1990s.
The core goodness of the 121 remained, including its reliability and headroom, but by late-1990s standards the Pride was woefully outdated. Subcompacts had come to ride a lot more compliantly, while the Pride was bouncy. Despite some minor safety updates, its rivals were safer too. The Pride sold purely on price and it was relatively successful in the UK, a supposedly sophisticated market that had nevertheless made modest hits before out of outdated cars like the Lada Riva and Daewoo Nexia.
You’d expect then that the Pride would have been the cheapest car on sale, right? After all, it was a dated design from a budget brand. By the last few years of its run, the Pride range opened at around £6000 in the UK. That wasn’t a huge saving from a Fiat Seicento or the handsome new SEAT Arosa, both of which retailed for a few hundred quid more. While the Pride undercut the 1988-vintage, Hungarian-built Suzuki Swift, it was itself undercut by the Perodua Nippa. The Nippa was in fact the cheapest car on sale in the UK at under £5000, and was a 1990 Daihatsu Mira built in Malaysia and introduced to the UK in 1997. Back in the day, a 121 was arguably better to drive than a Mira but such dynamic subtleties would have been happily ignored by a new-car buyer looking for the lowest price.
Besides the wagon and three- and five-door hatches, Kia also developed the aesthetically-challenged Pride sedan. The Kia Avella – better known to North Americans as the Ford Aspire, or Australians as the second-generation Festiva – had been developed to replace the Pride but was not launched in Europe and could not replace the Pride in South Korea due to the older car’s enduring popularity. But both Pride and Avella were axed for 2000, replaced by the Kia-developed Rio. The Pride was the last Kia to be a rebadged Mazda.
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Junkyard Classic: 1988 Lada Samara
When looking at the Mazda 121-badged variant, the resemblance to the rest of the late-80s Mazda lineup becomes more evident. The boxy flares were shared with the FC RX-7 and the first-generation MX-6.
http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/1/2039/3501/5096750038_large.jpg
http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/1/3322/741/8302870002_large.jpg
http://media.caranddriver.com/images/media/165853/1987-mazda-rx-7-turbo-photo-166415-s-429×262.jpg
As you can see in the last picture of the article, the Pride is still made in Iran, by Saipa.
http://www.saipacorp.com/
It has an strange redesign I was unaware of.
The Pride was also popular in Chile, here is maybe better known by the “Pop” name, as Kia called it Pride Pop during the last years of their sales.
Sorry for monopolizing this topic, but I just discovered the many varieties of the Pride in Iran as being made still today!
http://www.saipacorp.com/fa/allproducts
They even make a pickup!
Interesting company, Saipa. They seem to have licensing agreements in place for cars that because of sanctions could not be imported, and they even produce some old times. Not sure what it is based on though:
http://www.saipacorp.com/en/allproducts/Zamyad/zamyadvanetz24
It’s based on the Nissan Junior
Something else! The Pop was popular enough to be the Torino of TV detectives “Huaiquimán y Tolosa” in Chile.
Back to the car itself, I’ve never seen a clear explanation of the development of the Pride. I think it was developed by Mazda for Ford, to be made by Kia in Korea and sold as the Ford Festiva and the Kia Pride. So… Seems to me like the Mazda 121 was a side benefit of that development, but not a car thought before as a Mazda and then rebadged. Am I correct?
Also, were Mazda 121 made in Japan or Korea? And what about Ford Festivas sold in Japan?
Things are getting complicated…there was also this Mazda 121 model, fully based on the contemporary Ford Fiesta.
Wasn’t there another model of Mazda 121, built in the ’90s that at least in it’s styling was totally unrelated to the much more boxy car featured here? I seem to remember a 121 driven by CAR magazine that was a 4 door sedan…with a trunk (obviously) but a strangely rounded “greenhouse”/roofline.
Yep, introduced in Japan in 1989; a few years later in Europe and Australia. The red Fiesta based 121 above was the second gen.
The Mazda cockroach. Keep on top of the rust and it’ll serve you for hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
Mazda 121, Autozam something also called a Ford. I see them here in all three flavours pick one you like its the same car.
A Festiva for the rest of ya’.
Not entirely sure why, but the name Pride Pop made me immediately think….premature ejaculation. Or at least some kind of accident, as in ” oh, no, my Pride just Popped”.
That picture of the 121 (?) trying desperately to gain speed looks like a car straining to jump into the air and take flight.
The non-wagon 5 door looks kind of decent, I wonder why Ford gave us in the U.S. the 5 door Aspire and not the earlier Festiva?
I’ve always liked the Ford Festiva that was sold here in the USA at the time. For some reason, it was never sold in the USA with two extra doors for two extra passengers. I would’ve thought more people would’ve bought it if it were offered that way. I would’ve.
Just learned… There is a Diecast model in 1:24!
http://ripituc.blogspot.cl/2016/02/welly-124-saipa-kia-pride.html
Nice detective work, but not the best looking model ever is it?
The wagons are cute as a button. But, after my partner’s disastrous experience with his 2002 Rio wagon, we swore off Kias forever and ever. You just don’t want to know.
And by the way, Rios are th continuation of the Pride line to this day (still called Pride in Korea)
Let ya in on a secret: Today’s Kia has nothing to do with the stuff they were putting out 10+ years ago. It’s like refusing to buy a Chevy Cruze because of a late 90’s Cavalier.
Syke, it isn’t just about the cars. When you put a bad car together with horrendous dealer “service” than that’s just too much. I had the same negative experience with VW with my Jetta. One or the other can be tolerated, but not both.
Those are incredibly sturdy and reliable tin cans. Consistent 14 km/l no matter how hard you punish it. The engine is not the strongest, but enough to push it to nearly 180 kmh, which is a bit scary.
The interior on the Saipa 141 is a big improvement over the original one.
So on the same day we have a (nearly) current Kia, and a very early Kia. Makes a nice bookend, doesn’t it?
(And it wasn’t even planned that way.)
Personally, I like the Festiva/Mazda 121 far more than the later Hyundai-based Kias. Mazdas have decent dynamics, and the Festiva was so thoroughly Mazda engineered that it had none of the sense that there’s some foul smelling papier-mâché to its structure, the way later Kias always feel. It was the most Japanese car to ever come out of Korea.