Kia Brings Soul to LA Auto Show: Little car joins the pantheon of rolling boxes

First there was the boxy little Scion xB. Then there was the unfortunate redesigned xB, fattened up and stripped of its character. Then there was the Nissan Cube (well, first there was the Cube, 10 years ago in Japan, but who knew?). Which beat the Kia Soul to its debut by one day.

But now we got Soul. It might be the best. It appears to be, judging by its reception at the LA Auto Show on Thursday. The sickly metallic peasoup green in these photos doesn’t do it justice. Black with red tracer wheels looks hot.

The Soul won’t be launched until early March, but we’ll be there in Miami when it is, so stick around.

The Soul was designed in Southern California, if not for 13-year-olds, at least for a group that might appreciate this headline in a Kia press release: L8st hed-trnr will impre$ w/ personality & gr8 options.

Although you never know what might happen. Look at the Honda Element, for example: designed for young singles but discovered and claimed by Baby Boomers.

Little old ladies can have soul too.

We don’t want to say that Kia is trying to be catchy, but here are your four models. Soul. Soul +. Soul !. And Soul sport. How do you pronounce “!”?

The Soul is 6 inches shorter than the Scion xB, and Kia didn’t announce its weight so we can’t compare; but both its engines are smaller than the 2.4-liter in the xB. The Soul is powered by a 1.6-liter making 122 horsepower and mated to a 5-speed gearbox, or a 2.0-liter making 142 hp with either a 5-speed manual or 4-speed automatic. Both engines will get an estimated 30 highway miles per gallon, says Kia, adding that the Soul will be “very aggressively priced.”

Kia’s warranty is the best in the business, by the way: 60 months or 60,000 miles, with limited powertrain coverage of 10 years and 100,000 miles.

The real test might be in cargo capacity, another stat that Kia didn’t release, but it looks fairly vast. The rear seats fold flat and rear door opens wide.

Side-impact airbags, airbag curtains, and a tire pressure monitor are standard, while three of the four models come with ABS and stability control.

And so the cult wars are on. Like Scion and Cube, the Soul will push “personalization” on its buyers, with highly specific options available from Kia dealers. We have this friend named Khia, and she wants us to ask: if she buys a Soul, can she get a badge on the hood that spells her name?