KIA Picanto?? Not in North America...

Some might call it cute...

Hyundai Accent, Honda Fit, Toyota Echo, Ford Fiesta what do all these cars have in common?  They're all cars that are regularly seen in North America.

What if I said KIA Picanto?  Would you know the car in North America?  Probably not.  It's a tiny car, essentially a city car.  But what most North Americans don't know is that KIA has sold over 1 million copies of this car in the world since it was introduced 7 years ago.

This week I had the chance to drive the original KIA Picanto in a very unusual place, Curacao.  Curacao is located about 50km off the coast of Venezuela.  It's a colony of the Netherlands, therefore they get cars which are from Europe and there are many European models to be seen on this island of 150,000 inhabitants.

The 2011 KIA Picanto I had was a base model with a 4 speed automatic and a 1 liter 65hp 4 cylinder.  Not a particularly quick car, it was never the less pleasant to drive in a place with narrow roads and low speed limits.  The highest speed limit in Curacao is 80km/h which the Picanto could easily keep up with and in the capital city of Willemstad the car was a joy to drive and park because of it's size.  To give you an idea of its size, its only 33 inches longer than a Smart Fortwo and only 1 inch wider.  In those 33 extra inches KIA gives you 2 more doors, a back seat and a trunk!

Lots of room in the back seat for 2

A little over 2 feet longer than a Smart 

Driving a small car like this really makes you realize that you don't always need a large North American type car to get around and do errands.  Four adults are very comfortable in the Picanto.  The back seat is surprisingly spacious and there's lots of head room due to the high square roof line. I wouldn't want to sit in the back seat for any more than 2 hours, but for that matter I wouldn't want to sit in the the front seat for that long either.  It's really not a car that's meat to drive long distances on the highway.  It's a car that's meant to get you around urban areas efficiently and cheaply. That urban transportation idea also carries over into the visibility from within this car.  All the windows are large and give the driver the ability to properly tell were the corners of the car are at all times.  Parallel park this car once and you will fell like a pro even if you’re uncomfortable with parallel parking in general.

Fuel economy is high do to the frugal 4 cylinder engine.  A combined highway and city mileage rating of 6.2 l/100km is very easy to obtain. I managed to get 5.8 l/100km in a mix of highway and city driving with the air conditioning in use most of the time. 

The air conditioning does come at a high price while driving this car. The Picanto feels decent without the air conditioning on.  Turn on that A/C switch and the car becomes a stone to drive.  By the seat of my pants the car feels like a 65hp car but turn the A/C on and the car feels like a 38hp car.

In town below 60km/h the car zips around and the transmission quickly gets itself into 4th gear which seems to pay off with the good gas mileage.  Move out onto higher speed roads and a lot of thought needs to be put into merging and passing.  The best 0-100 km/h time I was able to obtain was 16.7 seconds and that was with the air conditioning off.  I didn't bother to do the time with the air conditioning on as I thought it would just end up being too depressing. (Which means somewhere in the low 20 second range)

Tiny 13 inch wheels are cheap to buy but ride like rocks...

One place where the original Picanto could use a whole lot of work is in the ride department.  It rides on tiny 13 inch wheels and if the roads are not as smooth as glass well your going to feel every bump, pebble, and minute pavement imperfection in your backside.  Maybe in Europe and Asia the roads are perfect but on this tiny island-country money is only spent on the roads in the 10km radius around the capital Willemstad.  Once you get outside that radius, you see some massive pot holes.  I saw one so large that it had actually taken the tire off the rim of a semi-truck.  Luckily I missed that one, but it was literally as wide as the entire front track of the Picanto!

Simple clear gauges

Very straight forward.

 
Instrumentation is basic but that simplicity is a wonderful change from some of the techno gizmos we have in our North American cars.  A clear large speedo is balanced by an equally sized tach, one gas gauge balance out the instrument pod, no muss no fuss.

Simplicity is the way with this car and that simplicity carries over to the trunk.  Don't expect to carry more that one medium sized suitcase in back and if you need some extra room the whole back seat folds down, no split
seat backs here...  But the car fit the island of Curacao where life is simple, it's about surfing, scuba-diving and good food.  If I lived on Curacao I would want a simple car, it just means one less thing to worry about and you can use the money you saved to enjoy the Caribbean lifestyle. It’s also very reliable in January 2013 the Picanto was named the UK’s most reliable car.  Top Gear Magazine named the Picanto “Bargain Car of the Year” in 2011, and the Association of Scottish Motoring Writers awarded the Pincanto “Best small car” in 2011.