(first posted 8/7/2015) I want you to take a look at the car above. If it isn’t the most generic vehicle produced so far in the 21st century then it’s definitely in the running. But it and its positioning in the market reminded me of another simple vehicle. Say the world ‘Rambler’ to anyone that was alive when they were still manufactured and sold, and they will instantly get images of plain-jane vehicles puttering along the streets of their memories. Driven by sensible people with sensible lifestyles and a price-conscious attitude. Rambler’s were all about no-nonsense vehicle ownership. And I think this Kia, willingly or otherwise, embodies this philosophy wholeheartedly.
(Gold and Blue Optima images obtained from cargurus.com)
The current Kia Optima is a striking design. Certainly a lot better looking than other offerings in the segment such as the Toyota Camry and the Chevrolet Malibu. Kia’s corporate image is one of the sleekest in the business right now and the Optima carries it very well indeed. It’s very well equipped, reasonably priced and it’s backed by a 10-year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty (with the added benefit of roadside assistance for the first 5 years or 60,000 miles). For the man or woman that needs a mid-size sedan and wants a bit of style for around $25,000 to $35,000 it would definitely be a vehicle to give some serious thought to. How the times have changed haven’t they?
From its introduction to the American market, to around the time the Kia Forte was released, there wasn’t any reason to pick the Kia offering over its competition apart from price. In fact, for most of its stay in these shores, price was the biggest thing going on for Korean manufacturers in general. The original Optima is a perfect example of this. As you can see, it’s a styling-free vehicle. If you asked someone without any interest in cars to draw you what they thought a normal ‘90s sedan looks like, you’d get the profile of one of these. It looks like the generic cars you put as props in videogames to make the environment seem more dynamic. In fact…
No, I apologize, Grand Theft Auto’s Kuruma still manages to have more style somehow.
Things don’t improve a lot on the rear of the car, not even the chrome strip between the tailights can hide the fact that there’s nothing there. I won’t lie to you, I had a hard time deciding whether to do a writeup on this one. To showcase a bad car is easy, to showcase a “nothing” car is a lot more difficult because there are only so many ways you can say “It’s not bad, but it’s not good either”. It’s not like the Toyota Corolla, a car that receives many a jabs for being the default choice for someone not interested in cars. For the Optima, there’s nothing in here to work with, it’s like trying to be critical of a cloud.
I will say though, this cloud actually had some interesting engines propelling it. The base engine was a 2.4-liter version of Mitsubishi’s 4G63 engine, the very same engine that propelled Mitsu’s turbocharged rally monsters. Except that in this case it was actually a 4G64 block mated with a 4G63 head. Not an uncommon modification in tuning circles if I recall correctly. And it did give 150 horsepower, which was a respectable amount and not too far off of some of the engine choices you can get in Today’s Optima. The other option was a 2.7-liter V6 that produced 170 horsepower. Both were available with either a 5-speed manual or a 4-speed automatic.
The interior was still not on par with the competition of the times but it was definitely improving with each generation. I haven’t had much seat time in Hyundais of this vintage, but I seem to recall that while everything in them was perfectly serviceable it didn’t feel substantial. Like if they were made from the same plastics that off-brand cheap cellphones were made of. Not to mention the writing on them would disappear after a year or so.
Some facelifts in 2002 and 2005 did little to improve (create?) its image. Sales were poor throughout its run and in its best year (2004) it sold 53,492 units. It was a lot better than the Saturn L-Series that it competed against (19,453) but a hell of a lot worse than more traditional mid-size alternatives such as the Honda Accord (386,770). It’d take the Optima eight years and the current generation to break the 100,000 sales mark, but once it did the car blasted through it and has stayed there since. With its third generation, the Optima was now a car that you could say you wanted instead of a car that you settled for or bought only because your main concerns were the size and the price tag. It had stopped being a Rambler.
But this leaves us a gap in the market, thrifty buyers have never really left, they have just moved. From Ramblers to Bel-Airs to Reliants to Optimas. There must always be an option for those people that are completely ruled by the accountant in their brains. So which is the car for the Rambler crowd today?
Oh Hello.
All I can think of when I see this generation Optima is the Subaru “Mediocrity” commercials from 2010. One of those very few ad campaigns where I actually watched the whole clip through and laughed out loud. The web URL shown at the end used to have a whole website including a fake “Build Your Own Car” page that was mildly entertaining, but it looks like it just redirects to the main Subaru page now…
I disagree about the Passat – it’s too expensive (excluding subsidized lease deals) and hardly mediocre enough to fill the cheapskate transportation role. With the Koreans and domestics stepping up their game in the last 10 years there is really nothing remotely “meh” left in the 2015 midsize sedan market, at least to the level of an ’02 Optima. Even the cheapest Chryslers and Chevys are very nice now.
I agree with you on the Passat. Even though VW has made the current U.S. Passat more mainstream and value-oriented to appeal to the masses, VW is still seen by many as more of a niche brand, at least more so than Honda and Toyota. It’s on its way, but it still has somewhat of a “It’s a German car that’s expensive to maintain” image in the eyes of many. I do miss the old Volkswagen.
It’s reputation for unreliability and expensive repairs exclude it from being a “meh” car. It might be a reliable car in reality, but VW has built itself a reputation for expensive repairs in many internet car forums.
I think the Camry, and Malibu are better examples of “meh”. The last gen Chrysler 200 would qualify as just being bad rather than “meh”.
The 200 was okay. It was a casualty of a sedan market shrinking so much that there was no room in the market for a cheaper alternative to the market leaders; the market leaders were being priced to also be the cheaper alternative.
Korea is a sedan market, so Kia and Hyundai are motivated to continue sedans in the US almost without regard to the actual US sedan market. Thus the very fancy sedans that don’t sell well new. While the Optima is gaining market from a base of nearly zero, the US built Hyundai Sonata has lost a lot of volume from its peak despite persistent investment in the product. It’s a big problem for the company.
The new Range Rover type Hyundai and Kia SUVs sell just fine; apparently, the brands are strong enough to sell a low cost alternative to the market leaders when the market is hot.
I respectfully disagree. I had a thoroughly disagreeable new Chrysler 200 as a rental for about 750 miles and five days in the winter of 2016. I’ll give it this: the driver’s seat was supportive and comfortable for long trips, and the pretend-analog speedometer was easy to read. That’s where the praise ends.
The electric power steering felt like a toy kiddy-car (steering wheel not connected to anything).
The controls were thoughtlessly designed: turn-dials of almost identical size, shape, and feel, and all located close to one another, for the blower speed, radio volume, and gear selector (I get it, shifters don’t need to be sticks any more because they’re just selector switches, but this has led to a proliferation of dumb designs; here they were trying and failing to ape BMW).
A random selection of the HVAC controls were poorly-labelled buttons; the equally-random rest of them required navigation through multiple menus to access via the touchscreen. None of it was at all intuitive or thoughtfully configured.
The transmission was sluggish to engage and kind of drunken in its shift quality. It was a 9-speed. Raise your hand who feels like being on the hook for its overhaul when it fails…yeah, me neither, and Chrysler’s reputation in transmission durability is deservedly lousy.
The electric parking brake sometimes required two switch pushes (pulls) to release (apply), sometimes three, and sometimes just one. No consistency to it.
The 4-cylinder engine idled with noticeable harshness, much more so than Chrysler’s 2.5-litre 4-cylinder of the ’80s and ’90s.
The blue lighting on the IP wasn’t obnoxiously piercing, but the digital speedometer/message center was a damn pain. Push any button that affects it and you get to read all about how you’ve pushed that button for multiple long seconds until it remembers that oh yeah, the driver might’ve maybe kinda wanted to see the speedometer. The tachometer was just as pointless as ever.
The rearview mirror was this ridiculously giant, chunky thing—it contained no compass, no auto-dim, no reading lights, etc; it was just a mirror—positioned such that it blocked an unreasonably huge proportion of the view through the windshield. I’m sure the sideview mirrors met the minimum legal field-of-view requirements…and I’m equally sure that’s all they only just barely did.
The headlamps weren’t abjectly inadequate, but they were also a whole hell of a lot less thoughtfully engineered than they could’ve and should’ve been for no additional money: way too much foreground light and not nearly enough seeing distance on low beam; high beam almost marginally adequate. Taillamps were functionally marginal, too.
But really, none of the above complaints matter at all. Know why? Because the radio could not be turned off. It could be muted temporarily until either the next engine start or one of a fairly long list of buttons or dials was touched, then it would come blaring and barking back. I looked in the owner’s manual: not a thing on how to turn it off. I looked on Google: lots of threads in the forums with people saying “I just bought/rented a 200, how do you turn off the radio?” and the answer was uniform: You don’t, because some dillweed decided an on-off switch isn’t necessary. Infuriating.
The cruise control switches were on the steering wheel…where the cruise control switches were on the Spirit/Acclaim of 25 years before. Right place for them, but the ones in the 200 could not be operated by touch because they all felt alike—not like the ones in the Spirit/Acclaim, which, like that car’s HVAC controls but not the 200’s, could be accurately discerned, selected, and operated without looking. The 200 overwall was adequate, and not a bare shred more; nothing about it any better than it minimally had to be. It was only better than the Spirit/Acclaim because people’s expectations, even the bottom end of them, advanced in the two and a half decades.
I could not see making or buying this car ever having been a good idea. At best it was uncompetitive.
(…and the squashed/arched roofline made ingress and egress a nuisance, and the mile-deep dashboard was a hideous waste of space, and…)
Saw one of these just yesterday a few blocks from my house. These look like a VERY sincere attempt to style THE most inoffensive car possible. It was a bit battered down the passenger’s side and all the light lens on the front of the car were frosted over.
My own car is a few years older and a bit more battered, but I think I’d rather replace it with a Saturn than one of these Optimas. The much ballyhooed warranty is useless if the dealers won’t honor it and the 3 dealers in my area all have dodgy reps.
The head of styling for Kia used to work for Audi, I actually prefer the look of most new Kias to the current Audi.
German Peter Schreyer is Kia’s “president and chief design officer”. As you say, he came from Volkswagen-Audi.
This is what I’ve read recently about today’s car design-culture in general:
“First there was form follows technology. Then form follows function. And now it’s form follows Germans”.
” 3 dealers in my area all have dodgy reps.”
That was part of Rambler’s problem as well. My parents, extremely sensible people, bought a new Rambler in 1960 and later a Hornet in 1973. Both cars were economical and easy to drive, but both cars had the exact same problem. An intermittent electrical fault. You couldn’t be sure it would start in the morning. The dealers couldn’t fix the fault, so my parents got rid of the cars.
I should hope that, as much volume as Kia puts out these days, there’s a good chance of the warranty being honored. That was one of the main reasons we bought our Forte Koup at the end of the lease–5/60 bumper to bumper, 10/100 powertrain.
Of course, it doesn’t matter if you don’t need it. And so far, in 41k miles and almost 4 years, the only time we’ve had to use the warranty was when the door-mounted tweeter fell out of its mounting, which happened within six months. Smooth sailing since then.
This is why we prefer makes with a good reliability track record: The character & ability of reps & mechanics don’t matter as much. I only called on the Honda dealer once since my 2009 purchase. While we’ve gotten several recall notices on our Toyota which required dealer visits, only one was a demonstrable problem. And recall fixes are usually no-brainers.
A good warranty suggests to me that a car-maker has deficient factory QC.
Now, now, as much as
peopleenthusiasts love to hate on the Corolla, you can always at least turn it into an argument by mentioning four little… er, numbers and letters: 4 A G E. (Or if you prefer, “ayy-eee eighty-six.”)If you wanted to offend AMC fans, I suppose someone could tinker with some photo-editing software to create a Marlin-style Optima fastback…
Gotta say, my favorite 4AGE is a front-drive E90; the Geo Prizm GSi hatchback.
My favorite 4AGE is the first-gen MR2. And yes, if I could find an AE86 that was still stock I’d be all over it (I may or may not paint it with panda livery).
Other lovely corollas include the 70-series liftback, the FX (GTi in europe) and the 90-series coupe, which I particularly like.
I saw one of those near-mythical stock AE86’s today in traffic. Notchback in light blue, styled steel wheels, looked original but well-kept. Stock at least as far as I could tell from 50 feet away, which is about as close as I got…
It was sold as the Kia Magentis here. Liked it by the way, sometime around 2004-2005 I thought it was one of the most beautiful brand new cars on the market, specifically in black. Now almost all of them are gone (their half-sister Hyundai Sonata is still around, though, as it has been assembled in Taganrog and very popular with the fleet customers).
2005 Kia Magentis MG was another serious contender for the Most Generic Vehicle title, by the way:
What is Curbside Classic coming to? Kia Optima? Future curbside classic? Really? Are you kidding me?
There I was thinking bland uninteresting GM people movers were plumbing the depths, but no a new low has been reached stuff like these were a hard to sell car new ,used they are nearly free ,classic? not this millenium
I can think of plenty of vehicles that deserve to be featured on Curbside Classic, but not this. The 2002 Kia Optima is a good looking car, but it’s hardly worthy of a “classic”.
By chance did you notice the word “Future” at the beginning of the title?
I’m sure people said that about the K-Car or the Trabant too.
“Classic” doesn’t exclusively mean valuable or highy sought after. Who knows, maybe in 30 years when there are hardly any of these left they might be a bit more interesting.
Well said, Brendan. I’ve been hearing the same thing about the cars of the 50s, 60s 70s and 80s since I started getting the car rags when I was a kid.
Columnist Robert Gottleib in Motor Trend in response to a reader question about putting a then new 67 Cougar on blocks and preserving it as a “classic” said the same thing: never be collectible, basically impossible to restore, etc etc etc. Short sighted nonsense.
No one ever thought the cars from the 50s or 70s would be sought after either. The hobby is not all muscle cars and the 350/350 conversion has become a cliche.
I’ve even seen an 80-81 Chevy Citation with historic plates on it here in AZ. The backstory of many vehicles keeps them interesting and even these have their fan base.
What could be more “enthusiastic” than keeping a GM Deadly Sin on the road and being a representative for that part of GM’s grim history?
And like the Rambler buyer the fans of the “uncollectible”, people who don’t follow the mob will always seek what hits them in the heart and in memory, and many times it’s not a muscle car, but pedestrian transportation that had a place in that buyer’s life.
I’ve always been more interested in the brands and cars that are rejected by the “experts” and dumped on by the underwear elite of the internet.
A 67 Rambler Rebel is the equivalent of this Kia and they’re being preserved and cared for, loved and appreciated by their owners almost fifty years later.
Even the lowliest Saturn SL1 will find it’s level in the hobby. Saturn already has a strong fan base. Hard core enthusiasts for the first cars, interesting tech [polymer panels and space frame construction], and represents a fascinating piece of automotive history.
Mr Solis: thanks for the fine article.
In fact, these cars are already scarce. It seems like in the mid-to-late 2000s, this was one of the vehicles I was most likely to see in rough shape – dented, dirty, hubcaps missing, tape-patched taillights.
Jason, the scope of Curbside Classic is very broad and covers a lot of territory. In addition to cars, we have at various times covered trains, planes, and even a Christmas tree. It’s a very big tent.
Let’s also keep in mind that several of the contributors are in their early to mid-20s and that’s a wonderful thing as they have a delightfully different view of the automotive world than those of us who are older. An ’02 Kia, something that might blend into background noise for some of us, is a car from their childhood. Thinking further, the age span of writers at CC is about forty years so that gives a lot of breadth to what is presented.
The content on here varies considerably and is to some degree dependent upon what we find in the wild, but if you aren’t satisfied with what some of our contributors have labored to create, there is the submission form at the top. We welcome fresh perspectives and view points and I’m sure you have unique experiences to bring to the table.
Moreover, here at CC we like to put the spotlight on vehicles that were perfectly normal and seemingly everywhere, but have slowly disappeared from the roads aswell as the public conscience. On that basis the Optima is already a CC. Right there with slant-six darts and Chevrolet Lagunas.
Or the Hyundai Turbo Scoupe. I haven’t seen one of those (or the non-turbo) in 15 years and the Tiburon is getting scarce, too. If you wanted fast and cheap with a sporty body…
This absolutely belongs here. Curbside classic is often about the unsung heroes, the workaday unexceptional sedans of the eras that our motoring culture has been through. That means Cutlasses, Torinos, Marlins, Clippers, and Beetles, but also B210s, Commodores, and even Optimas.
Carry on, ignore the fussing.
Nice post. As I’ve mentioned before, I give the Korean manufacturers great credit for going from clear third-world products in the 90s and early 2000s, to to some world competitive vehicles today. I still have memories of riding in a crude early 80s Hyundai Pony taxi careening thru Seoul streets. This Optima is unfortunately part of that less competitive era.
As a Lincoln admirer, I sometimes surprise myself comparing Hyundai’s current lineup and what Lincoln is offering (albeit this was before the new Continental was announced). The Genesis is a Continental that Ford would kill for – mid-sized with a 429 hp V8. And the Equus is the updated Town Car that Ford refused to make. While Lincoln is stuck selling inferior vehicles like the MKS and MKT. Hopefully the Continental is the forerunner of a product resurgence at the brand.
I too am hoping the Continental starts a resurgance for Lincoln along the likes of Cadillac in the past few years.
The new Genesis is very nice! Still lacking a little in personality but I’m a fan of its exterior styling. The interior is a huge improvement over the previous generation, my only complaint is that I wish they had gone with a different design for the instrument panel. It looks almost exactly like the Sonata’s in shape and materials, aside from more buttons and wood trim.
And while we’re on the topic of Korean cars’ appeal, I really like the Kia Cadenza as well, much more so than the K900. Very elegant styling. If it had a model geared more towards performance I’d consider getting on.
From my observation, Ford realized they can’t rely on Ford brand alone, and they tried to make something more premium and they don’t have Jaguar or Land Rover to sell, they have to sell Lincoln this time. But the Continental is still very concept, and I don’t think they will spend much money in chassis anyway. It will be a current version of ’90s Continental, based on a common car with a better engine and new bodyshell plus more refined interior.
Very nice write-up Gerardo! It takes a lot of effort to write about a car thats interest factor is about as much as getting a root canal while watching C-SPAN.
In my country, Ramblers were much commoner in their day than these Kias. I think I might have seen one, but maybe not.
Ramblers were more distinctive. 🙂
I was living in OZ when these Kia were new they really were unwanted and it was rare to see one, even in NZ they are a rare sight and the slightly better selling Sonatas can be had nearly free now they just dont age as well as their Japanese equivalents despite having Japanese powertrains.
Cars that survive into classic status tend to have been good used cars that give subsequent owners good service not the sold new traded at 2 years old and scrapped at 10 cars.
Especially when you ordered one with a v-8, properly geared rear and manual. Imagine that would have been quite the sleeper for Cruise Night.
Bland car with Japanese engine and long warranty. Low list price. Wonder why it sold only at second tier levels. It could be the shady dealers and iffy credit standards actually hurt it. One would think Kia’s idea was to sell nurses and school teachers 90% of a Camry for 80% of the price. The scary dealers would have chased those people off leaving them with the drecks. Seeing the drecks drive the car would cement the perception.
That Kia was able to break out of that negative feedback loop, even has production cost in Korea went up, is a great mostly untold story.
The last Rambler was the year I was born. Were their dealers so shady. Locally the AMC dealer is now the big Honda dealer.
I’m glad you wrote about this car. It is one of the driving appliances that has already seemingly vanished, even if they are still around. It’s a car that even us car enthusiasts will see rattling down the road one day and say “hmmm, what exactly is that?” Unloved, yes, but a credible base for Hyundai/Kia to build from. The current Kia lineup is significantly better than the ones from the 2000s, and the today’s Kias can certainly be counted among the better looking cars in their segments.
I don’t agree that the Passat is the new Rambler “non-car” as it is too pricey. Where I do think you are spot on is regarding the “dumbing down” of Passat styling, since it now looks so anonymous that it just fades away. Never good for a car that hails from the Fahrvergnugen folks.
My vote for today’s Rambler would not actually be a car, it would be an SUV since those have become so prevalent as daily transportation devices. So my nominee for today’s oddball, practical, forgettable vehicle with weak dealers would be… drumroll… the Mitsubishi Outlander.
Oh dear, I actually like those.
I do too actually. It is sensibly sized, combining 3 rows and a 4 cylinder. It is also a good name for an underdog Mitsubishi.
Exactly! It is like a pair of sensible shoes and far from a mainstream choice. That is why it makes me think of Rambler, which was a very competent vehicle, just not exciting or popular.
Do you think he meant Jetta. I actually drive one and bought it because the lease was right, and I didn’t really care at the time (going through a separation) what I drove. In the end, I think I made a good choice. It’s red, and gets a lot of positive comments. Plus, it’s a turbo with great handling. Not the American ride I am used to, and that’s a positive.
I always thought the Optima/Sonata of this gen was a decent and practical looking vehicle. You can tell by then Hyundai had made strides in their quality by early 2000s, and it was these cars it was showing its turn around, i especially remember the very wanted Hyundai Santa Fe, man I loved that first gen, but on the Kias, while no comparison to todays Kia, was a refresh mark, starting with the Optima
Same thing I was thinking–these were 100% forgettable cars in terms of styling, but they had already made great strides in quality compared to the rubbish they were selling in the 90’s. Remember the Sephia? And really, that’s the way to do it–fix the quality first, then work on appeal. The opposite of the way some manufacturers seem to have gone (Mercedes in the 00’s comes to mind, going from the bank fault W124/W126 to the self-destructing W210 and early W204).
When did Hyundai take over Kia? That was a rather important tipping point, I’d think, as they had already started up the hard path to respectability.
The main problem of Korean cars, regardless their good qualities, in this segment is their horrible depreciation. The purchase price (when new) evaporated in the blink of an eye, in the very best Daewoo-tradition.
I agree. The money you saved when you bought it caught up with you when you traded. If you found a KIA dealer who was good, then it was okay if you planned to keep it until the warranty ran out.
Curbside Classics….after “stumbling” upon this website and reading a few entries I assumed this was about “everyman-type classics”….hence the curbside. If you want museum-type classics, there are other websites.
MANY years ago I ran across a British magazine that was the print version of this idea, Practical Classics was devoted to the kind of car that was affordable by “everyman”.
I appreciate this website, especially the articles dealing with Australian and South American variants of “Big 3” cars and trucks.
Practical Classics is now on Google Newsstand… Great news for me as I used to pay $10 a copy!
Kia was extremely fortunate that Daewoo (both with their own cars and Suzuki-badged Daewoos) was stinking up the market at that time, it kept these from being the worst cars on the market.
When were they the worst cars on the market? My first Kia was badged Ford Festiva LX, and other than horrible bakelite Yokohama tyres, was a very good little econobox. Memories of it were what gave Maggie and I the nerve to take a chance on her Spectra.
Interesting choice. Definitely not a car I would have expected to see in CC, then again that’s why I come here every morning. The usual car sites would bore me with BMWs, muscle cars and Mustangs.
As to Kia ownership: Count the Paczolt family as part of the fanboi crowd. Back when I was dating Maggie, she desperately needed to replace her beaten-to-hell (by her soon to be ex-husband) Explorer, so we hit the BHPH lot that she normally dealt with. After test driving a few possibilities (B or C class sedan with a manual) we settled on a mildly riced-out ’06 Spectra SX. Which has turned into a car that she really loves, and coupled with a really good, straight dealership experience has her looking at another Kia for her next car.
Fast forward a couple of years, marriage and honeymoon on the horizon and it was time to get rid of the Ranger in favor of a mini-van for racetrack camping and clean hauling. The specs here were under $7500, under 100k, and more than four speeds in the automatic. The winner was an ’08 Sedona which promptly had the middle row of seats permanently put in storage and began a round of NASCAR and MotoAmerica racetrack weekends, and all the light moving that our eventual movers didn’t handle.
Kia makes damned good cars. Depending on which side of the schizoid split I end up on next year when I replace the xB (I’m running between a Fiat 500 Abarth and like cars on one side and Prius/Volt/maybe Leaf on the other – yes, I normally work this way) an Optima Hybrid is very high on my list. Assuming I can find one used (new on this is out of budget).
The big difference, though, is the local dealer (Pearson Kia in Richmond). On the service and support side, they been very straightforward, no upsales, no subtle tricks, and a level of dealer service I haven’t seen since the last time I was in Richmond BMW. At a heck of a lot lower price, of course.
Don’t underestimate the brand. I get so tired of the usual bloggers who look at anything Korean and can’t get the word “Daewoo” out of their heads.
Seconded. I bought the 12 Sedona because of price, and have been very impressed. I am spending the weekend with a rental 14 Caravan, and don’t like the way it drives nearly as well. I have always wondered if I made a mistake skipping over the Chrysler vans and have now decided that I did not.
When these cars were new, they were so offensively dull that I blocked them from my mind. The same went for Kia’s other cars: From about 1990 to 2010, the only offerings of the Korean motor industry that ever caused me to raise an eyebrow were the Hyundai Tiburon, and the bizarre grille on the front of Daewoos. I never thought I’d own anything like that.
Today I drive a Hyundai Veloster, and would recommend Hyundai or Kia without a second thought.
The last time I checked Veloster, I can see it’s much improved indeed. It’s right instead of wrong ( in the past ) but some details still need to be sorted out and it shows their inexperience. ( door bottom wrap is really bad, if compared to Chevrolet )
I rented one of these, and was pleasantly surprised (it was a rental and my expectations were low) at it’s driving dynamics, it’s power, and its full list of options. It was a very competent car, and I enjoyed my time in it. But what kept me from really liking it was the flimsy feel of every surface and it’s incredibly boring looks. I remarked to a friend that it was a great rental, but you could tell it would be a beige cube at the end of a magnetic crane in a few years.
I am going to comtinue my ‘reinvention of Grandfather’s ideas’ and suggest that KIA -was- the Rambler of the early 60’s and has now transmuted itself into the AMC of the late 60’s when their blandmobiles were transformed into the Javelin, AMX, and other beauties.
I thought at the time that AMC had finally turned the corner and on its way to becoming a mainstream maker. As was pointed out about KIA above, AMC cars went from being cars you settled for to cars you wanted to buy.
It seemed a winning formula at the time, and AMC did well for a while. The two things that killed the, (IMHO) were the expensive requirement of the pollution and safety standards followed by the hubris that was the Pacer.
I think that KIA can escape the things that withered AMC – there are no new major government requirements on horizon, and the have plenty of money (thanks to Hyundai) to help them survive any hubris-attack-wonder car moments. If they can escape the depreciation trap caused by financing anyone who has a co-signer who can breathe, I think they have a bright future. Best of luck to them.
As for the current ‘Accountant’s Friend’ New car, I am going to propose the Nissan Versa. It ticks all the boxes for cheap, reliable, bland, and inoffensive as far as I can remember anyhow. They’re everywhere I think but I can’t remember the last time I saw one. The only reason the Versa came to mind at all is that a friend of Mrs. Lokki – divorced, so so credit, uninterested in cars beyond color, and needing to replace here thrice-smashed 170,000 mile Ford Fusion just bought one on the advice of a car-savvy guy in her office.
Lokki: currently the sub-prime kings of the industry are GM and Chrysler, according to Goldman Sachs financial data. That sub prime Kia/Hyundai buyer stuff was long ago when the cars were sold on price and easy financing and the 10/10 warranty.
Add the Matador 2 door to the list of mistakes AMC made. They were swinging for a piece of the mid size market that it didn’t maintain after the first year.
There were plans to carry over the 2 door’ styling elements for a four door version, which would have been money better spent than what was blown on the Pacer.
A current Rambler? That’s a tough one. If they still made them, a Mitsubishi Galant would fill the bill quite nicely. But even though there are plenty others with an overall mediocre driving experience (looking at you, Toyota), there’s just about no modern car that has really boring ‘styling’ in the same vein of the feature Optima, what with all the current fad of slashes and points everywhere. Even bottom-feeders like the Spork, Mirage, and Versa have a certain charm in their elemental approach to transportation. It’s like every manufacturer has finally figured out that styling a vehicle to be as absolutely inoffensive as possible is not a road to success.
However, if I could choose a vehicle based on just one aspect of styling to make it the new Rambler, it would have to be the new Jeep Cherokee. It seems as if the Jeep design team concentrated their entire efforts on the alien-like front end (which, if not really attractive, at least the slit headlights and ‘urinal face’ grille is eye-catching), and completely forgot about the rear. I just can’t get over that huge expansive panel of, literally, nothing between the high tail-lights and the low rear bumper.
For work I rented one of these when new – I believe at Sacramento airport for a drive to Davis, CA. It was the V6 model. I remember a) not knowing what kind of car it was until I looked it up and b) being surprised that it had the smooth and reasonably powerful V6. IIRC it drove very nicely except for a little skittishness in the automatic transmission in changing between third and four gears.
If you check the used car consumer reviews on Edmunds, etc. these cars continue to receive ****plus ratings so they appear to be reasonably durable and established a foundation for Kia’s popularity today.
TBH, this version of the Kia Optima actually looks like a rather stretched body version of the unrelated and otherwise different Chevy Aveo 4 Door Sedan.
I think the VW NMS Passat is more at the the Ambassador end of the Rambler scale than the Rambler American end.
My great aunt and uncle had Ramblers when I was a kid, my parents drove Pontiacs. In the 50’s these were fully different classes of cars.
I have a ’14 Passat TDi SEL as a company car, and it’s a better car than it looks. But I agree, it is totally anonymous.
My wife drives an ’11 Tiguan, and I’m replacing it with a Sorento with third row seating.
A fellow I work with has had one of these since new back in the day. Civil engineers tend to be frugal and practical in their vehicle choices, but he’s a cheap bastard. Like unbalanced (because the shady tire place doesn’t include it in their loss leader advertised price) Chinese tires on his wife’s car cheap bastard. Were Rambler drivers cheap or frugal?
Back to the car – he had some mechanical problems with the engine that KIA did not want to cover under warranty since he always had the service work done by whoever had the best coupon. He eventually got KIA to honor the warranty and do some pretty major mechanical work, a top end rebuild IIRC. He at 160k + miles and still ticking along with the odd failure here and there – you don’t have to fix all of them you know. All he does is drive it to and from work, so he’ll drive it as long as possible, comfort and safety be damned.
Ramblers sold to owners who wanted to be frugal/cheap, but the cars themselves weren’t significantly cheaper to buy than other American cars. Nash and American Motors were low volume operations and they had about the same unit costs for labor and materials as other American cars. American Motors wasn’t operating in a lower cost manufacturing environment and exporting to America.
A buddy of mine bought one of these in ’04 or so when his ’87 Subaru DL wagon finally gave up the fight. Mediocre credit and a baby on the way, so it was the most economical way to go new and get something in the mid-size segment. And as far as I knew, before we eventually lost touch, it did well for him. Anonymous? Absolutely. But lots of value for the money. Yes, at the time depreciation was still a killer, but as has been said if you keep it for the duration of the warranty, money well spent.
Today? Totally different ball game on appeal. My wife drives a ’12 Forte Koup, and while I have a few quibbles with the driving experience and the interior, one cannot argue that it’s been very reliable, economical, and looks good doing it. And I would love – LOVE – to upgrade to a ’15 Optima SX turbo in Corsa blue. Same color as our Forte, rare on the Optima, and to my eye, stunning. I just can’t justify the money having just bought a house. But it’s far and away the best-looking midsize on the market to my eye. The ’16 refresh tones it down a little, and loses some of the magic, but still handsome.
I worked at Win Kelly Chevrolet in Clarksville MD when it had a Kia Franchise(the Kia’s are gone now and the building that housed the service center for them was sold to Antwerpen and made a Hyundai dealership) and these just came out. Part of my job was to Predelivery inspect and road test these cars. I found the Optima to be a pleasant driving car that was comfortable to drive. I felt that though it was not really inspiring a design, that it made a nice car for long trips. The top of the line ones were well loaded with leather, CD Player(remember when that was a high money option?) etc but even the base models had power windows and locks.
During the time I worked at the place few Optimas came back for anything but minor issues
So generic that the 2003 model in the US didn’t even have a Kia badge on the grille! Yet it did in Canada. Did they WANT to make it look as generic as possible?
The predecessor to this Optima would be the incredibly bland Corsica. The successor would have to be the Jetta. Yuck.
I had never made the Rambler connection with these, but it’s brilliant. And it makes perfect sense to the guy who compared his later Sedona to a Matador wagon. 🙂
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/question/curbside-question-does-your-new-car-remind-you-of-an-old-car-or-what-would-your-driveway-look-like-in-1973/
I think the original Óptima looked quite nice. My dad was somewhat interested in one, but decided not to do it (and ended up buying a new Legacy to replace his old Legacy).
To my mind, Ramblers stood out from the pack. Sometimes that was good, sometimes not. The featured Kia is not only inoffensive, it is just plain invisible.
One thing that stands out for me with these is how well the alloy wheel styling compliments the car. There is an exceptionally well-kept one near me in black with the multi-spoked polished aluminum rims and I think it looks pretty good.
I realize I’m in the minority here in thinking this car looks decent. Especially in that blue(ish) color.
I rode in a rental next-gen Optima once and I have to say it seemed pretty lousy. Everything just felt cheap, flimsy and crude. Made my Taurus seem like an E-Class Benz in comparison. I was disappointed because I really wanted to like it. It went off my used-car radar forever after that.
People I’ve known who had a Kia/Hyundai have all had various issues. Its been a few years but I still keep them at arm’s length until I hear better first-hand long-term info from enough people.
There. A boring comment-post for a boring car.
😛
Apropos of nothing…
I bought two KIA Rios for my two youngest kids (a 2001 and a 2003) when they were in college. The older of the two (my daughter) drove the 2001 for 10 years before trading it in, on a newer used Hyundai.
Both cars were the definition of an appliance, but being underpowered, and quite slow, I thought perfect for them to tool around in their little college towns safely.
The long warranty was the hook to get the interested buyer in the door. My thinking was that if the manufacturer was willing to stand behind their car for that long, I’d be willing to take a chance too. I remember the Hyundai Excel, it was awful but it was also cheap. I rented a new Hyundai Sonata, four cylinder, a couple of years ago and I thought that it was a pretty good car. Performance, economy and spaciousness. I’ve had Hondas and Acuras and while these were much better designed cars, the Hyundai was totally adequate.
As to whether this car is worthy to be a feature, well of course it is. Almost any well preserved twenty year old vehicle would be. An older survivor is even better. As has been said before, these are once common cars that you now just don’t see very often. We are nostalgic for the cars from our childhoods, where the cars in our lives were chosen by the adults around us. They might not have been the fanciest or the flashiest or even new. But they were what we rode in and had our childhood experiences and memories built around.