Video: 2010 Kia Soul

The Soul look a lot like the Soul concept that debuted at the 2006 Detroit Auto Show. Dimensionally, the Soul is a little bit smaller than the XB. A little bit larger than the Cube. It trades those cars sort of boxy rear ends for what probably looks the most like a miniature SUV Kia decks out uplevel models with things like a moonroof and 18 inch wheels. Neither feature is that common in this segment, engine choices include two small four cylinders that get an estimated 30 plus miles per gallon on the highway, according to Kia. That should put the Soul competitive with Cube and a little bit better than the 28 mile per gallon Scion XB. Although the XB does have a little bit larger engine, so we'll have to drive this before we can tell you honestly, whether the Soul has feet. Soul probably has the most conventional dashboard layout of its immediate competitors. The controls for the AC and the stereo sit right here in the center. The gauges are in front of you and the transmission shifter is right down here. A couple of nice convenience features you don't always find in this segment, a sunglass holder it's right here, actually instead of up there, and there are a sliding sun visors, another nice thing. There is an auxiliary iPod USB Jack here, it's standard. It means you can crank your Soul full of collective soul or daylight soul or Soulja Boy. All right. I got nothing else. Rear seats have plenty of head room and leg room. They don't have a reclining back rest. That's a feature that a lot of cars in this segment do have, nor is there a center armrests again, a feature the Cube, few other cars have. What there is is a seatbelt that's anchored in the seat itself. That's a nice feature. It keeps visibility for the driver. Good, instead of a seatbelt being on the ceiling, which is kind of dangling around in your rear view mirror. One nice thing about boxy designs is that they allow a nice large cargo opening. No exception here. One nice thing we do like is that the seats, when they fold down, have a nice flat load floor. That's the same situation in the XB, but in the Cube, there's quite a bit of a ledge you have to kind of lift things over. The seats do go down... pretty simply. There's no gap in the floor. Unfortunately, there's nothing really to help pull them back up. So it's a bit of a reach when you're trying to do that. The Soul comes in four trim levels, the Soul, the Soul Plus, the Soul Exclaim, and the Soul Sport. Although higher ones are fairly well appointed, the base model forgoes items like AC, cruise control, keyless entry and antilock brakes. That does mean that it could undercut the XP's $16,000 price tag by quite a bit, The Scion does include those items standard. For now, Kia definitely has a contender on his hands because in an economy like this, affordable runabouts, could be just what the doctor ordered. <v Announcer>For additional information on this car or any other, go to Cars.com and our blog Kicking Tires.