Sunday, June 14, 2009
2010 Kia Soul wallpaper with low expectations didn’t make sense. Perhaps the details of the funkwagon’s story seemed overly familiar at first blush – Kia wants, nay, needs to be more than just the bargain-basement Hyundai store. Differentiating product lines with the help of bold design has been tried before, and the results have been disastrous more often than they’ve been wildly successful. Finding out that the Soul’s styling inspiration was a wild boar sent the cynical mind of this autowriter reeling, preparing to suffer with a bore of a swine-inspired car. But Kia’s been on a roll lately with aggressively priced product that’s well equipped and imbued with performance that’s often more inspired than the sum of its parts. If any brand stands a chance of melding its design studio’s hit parade with tuning that lives up to the looks, it’s Kia… right?
This is the fastest, most hardcore Scirocco R ever. Put it this way, a Scirocco is a hot wind, so this bad boy is pretty much what you get after a night on the beer and a Chicken Vindaloo.
Scirocco tradition, the R is front-wheel-drive only, but at least the power will be tempered by the addition of the new XDS electronic diff as fitted to the new Golf GTI. You can have a six-speed manual or a DSG, depending on how involved you want to be with the driving experience. It’s a bit lower and has beefed-up brakes too.
Complimenting the under-hood fireworks are plenty of scoops and vents in the new body kit, some nice wheels and a little wing too. Sports seats, nice dials and lots of R badges are fitted to the insides.VW unleashes
The Scirocco Studie R is very cool when it launched for the first time at the Bologna Motor Show earlier this year. And now the production version of the white-hot Scirocco, likely to be badged the Scirocco R, has been spied at the infamous Nurburgring circuit in Germany alongside a current 2.0 TFSI car.
Pictured on the right, the Scirocco R is clearly wearing a more aggressive body kit with lower front and rear bumpers and more sculpted side skirts, as well as larger 19-inch wheels. But there’s no sign of the wild rear wing attached to the Bologna show car.
When it goes on sale to the public, the Golf-based coupe will feature a storming 262bhp version of the 2.0 TFSI engine already available in 197bhp form. That means a 0-60mph sprint in around six seconds and a 155mph top speed.
Appropriately, both the Scirocco R and Golf R20 will make their public debuts at the Nurburgring 24-hour race in May. Prices should start from around £25,000 when it goes on sale later this year.