[Courtesy of Kia Motors]
South Korea's Kia Motors on Wednesday unveiled the revamped version of its compact vehicle Morning which has been popular especially among female drivers at home.
The company began taking pre-orders for the third-generation model, which also marks the first revamp of the small but sturdy bestseller in six years.
Kia unveiled the new compact vehicle at its test laboratory at Hwaseong, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Seoul. The new Morning will hit the market on January 17 in five separate trims with a price range of 9.5 million won (7879.5 US dollars) to 12 million won.
Every trim will be powered by Kia's "1.0 Kappa Eco Prime" gasoline engine supported by either a five-speed manual transmission or a four-speed automatic transmission fitted into a next generation compact car platform.
[Courtesy of Kia]
Kia, a subsidiary of South Korea's leading Hyundai Motor, said it focused on improving safety, performance, and efficiency, describing the new Morning as safest in its segment. The new-generation Morning is more stylish than previous models.
The portion of high-strength steel used on the car's chassis increased to 44 percent from 22 percent, the company said, adding the new model's torque vectoring and a SLS (straight line stability) system provide better and stabilized handling and traction in extreme conditions.
Morning became South Korea's best-selling compact vehicle for almost six years in a row since 2009, but it was dethroned in August 2015 by Chevrolet's revamped compact car, Spark. Now only three models in compact segment -- Kia Morning, Kia Ray and Chevrolet Spark -- are available in South Korea.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
