Video: 2014 Kia Soul

A vehicle that Kia promises delivers more room, a lot more upscale features and better drivability in the same boxy package. Let's get right to it. The new Soul has very boxy lines still like it's predecessor. Styling cues- a lot of them follow Kia's Trackster concept- which was introduced in 2012. That was another boxy looking car. It was supposed to have styling themes that were similar to a bulldog. You definitely knew Kia wasn't going to accept any "Shih Tzu" after that. Kia says the new soul rides a chassis that is longer, wider and stiffer than before. Overall structural rigidity is up about 30%, but dimensions haven't changed all that much. Wheelbase up about an inch. Width up about half an inch. Now you've seen the LED light accents up front and back. You've got continuous light pipes now that frame the rear taillights. Kind of a cool look, especially as it's driving away. Definitely going to be very iconic. Let's check out the cargo area. Kia says the hatch opening is about two and a half inches wider than before. And there's about 25 cubic feet of cargo room here. That's a reasonably good number. There's a lot of space here. If you open up the storage well, it's kind of nice that they've got this partition here, because then you can fold down the seats and have a flat cargo floor, or you can have more height right here if you open this up. Overall, a lot better quality than before. You've got padding in important areas where your arms and elbows fall. Even along the dashboard, you've got a vinyl, stitched vinyl, atop here, atop of the instruments. Even things like the headliner are a lot better than before. Trim levels include the Base, the Plus and the Exclaim Souls. If you get up to the top trims, you get a ton of available features. Now things like a panoramic moon roof, heated and ventilated seats for the front seats, a heated steering wheel, a power driver's seat, definitely a ton of features there. Still some features from the old Soul carry over. Things like rings around the door speakers that beat along to music. We've always found that those work best with bad music. So cue up the Nickelback or Creed or 30 Seconds to Mars or Chingy. One thing about boxy hatchbacks is that they tend to preserve rear headroom. And that's definitely true in the Soul. Headroom is excellent here. The leg room is pretty good too. That's where I would sit to drive. I'm about six feet tall. Seat sits nice and high off the ground so your knees aren't dangling kind of elevated up in the air. Some amenities here for backseat passengers. I've even got heated seats with two stages back here. Pretty nice for a compact hatchback. The last Soul was a peculiar little car that turned out to be very popular for Kia. Its successor comes on sale this fall, and there's no reason not to believe that it can't follow up on the first generation's sales success. (car engine revving)