More Reader Spy Shots: Kia's Small MPV Snapped in the Czech Republic

Carscoop readers Vladimir Pekulas and Jan Mlejnek bagged these shots of Kia's forthcoming mini-MPV on the highway near Mlada Boleslav in the Czech Republic. If you take a closer look at the pics after the jump, you'll see that the man sitting in the passenger's seat of the Kia test car retaliated against our readers by taking or pretending to take, photos of them also... But anyways, let's refresh our memory on Kia's new model which has yet to be named.

The five-seater MPV is in effect the production version of Kia's No3 Concept study that was shown for the first time in Geneva earlier this year. The Korean automaker's retort to the likes of the Honda Jazz, Opel Meriva and Citroen C3 Picasso uses the same architecture as the Kia Soul and Hyundai i20.

It is anticipated that the small MPV's engine range will comprise of 1.6-liter petrol and diesel units, both producing an output of 126HP, while certain markets may also receive a 115HP 1.6-liter diesel along with a range-topping 2.0-liter gasoline engine making 142HP.

Kia will most probably swoop the covers off the mini-MPV at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September with European sales set to start before the end of the year. Like the European market Cee'd, the MPV will be produced at the Hyundai Group's new plant in the Czech Republic.

"Děkuji" Vladimir Pekulas & Jan Mlejnek for the pics!

2010 Kia Cee'd Facelift Photos: Exterior Spied, Interior Leaked

In addition to receiving a whole bunch of spy shots of the 2010 Kia Cee'd facelift at the Nurburgring race track in Germany from our photographers, the crew over at Kia-World also sent us three leaked photos of the hatchback's subtly refreshed interior. Kia's updated VW Golf-sized hatch is expected to make its world debut at the Frankfurt motor show in September, before arriving in European markets sometime during the fourth quarter of the year.

The leaked shots of the 2010 Cee'd hatchback's interior reveal that Kia's designers have upgraded the center stack with new air-condition and audio system controls and their respective LCD screens while other changes include the restyled instrument panel gauges, a new three-spoke steering wheel and the redesigned lower part of the center console.

And how about the 2010 Cee'd's exterior? It's apparent from the spy photos of the camouflaged prototype on the 'Ring that the bulk of improvements will be made on the front and rear end of the car.

Aside from the new hood design and the restyled exterior mirrors with integrated turining signals, expect a new grille and headlights influenced by Kia's latest production and concept cars likes the Soul and KND-5 mid-size sedan study plus a few changes at the rear including different tail lights.

Interior Photos Via: Kia World

Car, what Car? All the Babes from Kia's Korean Press Releases in the Past Year

Being the superficial people that we are, we couldn't help but notice that Kia's latest Korean market announcements (e.g. for the Picanto and Amanti facelift) were more often than not accompanied by photos of beautiful women. With this in mind, we decided to run a check on all of Kia's KDM press releases from June 2008 to June 2009 - true, we always find time to waste when it concerns women.

Now pay attention for the most useless yet somehow intriguing, fact of the day. To our surprise, no matter what the subject, from around 220 announcements in the past year, all of which contained either a single photo and/or a video, 53 press releases or roughly 25 percent of the total came with a photograph depicting one or more (usually good-looking) females!

Now if we could only convince Kia to follow the same strategy with its press releases in other parts of the world...