Kia’s SUV is great value, shame it’s not more sporty

...it’s just a shame the South Korean giant’s cute, cuddly and very quirky SUV isn’t a bit more sporty, too

Ican’t for the life of me understand why so many people seem to be genuinely time-poor nowadays when we’ve never been more surrounded by technology that’s supposed to save time. Or is this tech revolution just one massive con? Like those mind-melting drugs of the Sixties and Seventies that purported to make the groovy groovier and the experimental more open-minded when in fact their main effect was to cause the cosmically gifted musicians of the day to produce pop songs lasting several days instead of several minutes.

‘Keep spare time spare,’ is my new mantra for 2017, along with, ‘keep off the sugar’, ‘equal rights for all nut jobs’ and ‘nobody puts Sturgeon in the corner’.

Keep spare time spare for life, because there’s plenty of it to be lived every moment of every day.

Real life rules, real life rocks. It’s why record numbers of viewers rejoice at the sight of green fields and good folk on Countryfile. It’s why Bake Off took over TV for close to a decade. It’s why more of us are stay-cationing than ever before.

Keep spare time spare for sitting quietly with elderly loved ones who just want to know we care as much about them as they do about us. Keep spare time spare for thoughtful, thorough and often hilarious family spring clear-outs.

Keep spare time spare for tending the borders and giving the garage doors a fresh lick of paint. Keep spare time spare for farmof ers’ markets, car-boot sales, charity MoonWalks and those marvellous Parkrun events.

So when did all this faux time-saving consumerism nonsense begin? I blame the bathroom shower. Why we ever allowed ourselves to be duped into a panicky, daily splashand-dash over a calm Sunday-night soak I will never know. A bath is where the magic happens, where our demons are bound to sleep, where the frothy idyll relaxation and contemplation sets our imagination free.

During my last bubble-filled nirvana, my mind began wondering when our inner cultural barometer is at its most accurate, as my spleen was still pulsating following a subconscious run-in with two lots of critics concerning two recent releases. The first was the new Tom Hiddleston/Brie Larson flick Kong: Skull Island. I loved the movie and was therefore unpleasantly surprised to discover it had been roundly hammered by many hacks. The second was Ed Sheeran’s new album, Divide, which again I loved and which again was panned by several sections of the alleged music biz cognoscenti.

Having had both Tom and Ed on my radio show recently, I fretted that I might have been the doe-eyed victim of a calculated PR charm offensive.

Becoming increasingly paranoid, I decided to check online for stats to back me up.

I didn’t have to look far: Rotten Tomatoes, the seminal triumphor-turkey movie website gave Kong an entirely respectable 79%. As for Ed, in the first week of sales his new album shot to No 1 all over the world and broke Spotify several times over – incredible!

And so to this week’s review car, namely the small and quirkily formed Kia Soul Sport.

A car that looks like the under-developed runt in a litter of otherwise perfectly formed Range Rover Vogues. I liked it, my mechanic Tim liked it and my editor and his mate liked it – in fact, his mate liked it so much that he’s signed on the dotted line for one. We were all for giving it four stars

IS IT VALUE FOR MONEY? YES. IT’S WORTH EVERY PENNY

minimum from the get-go, maybe even a full house, but then my inner alarm started to beep. Something wasn’t quite right.

Sure, the car is cute and cuddly – mini SUVs have to be nowadays. Sure, there’s a consistent narrative of smart, stylish and comfy pragmatism to the interior. Sure, there are loads of SUVstyle luxuries that come as standard, such as heated seats both front and back, heated steering wheel and variable mood lighting that pulsates and flashes in time with the music blaring from the rather sophisticated and relatively powerful sound system, via the relatively massive and easy-tooperate infotainment screen.

Sure, the 1.6-litre, four-cylinder (‘warm hatch’ – yawn) engine is pokier than many expected, and the body roll minimal. Sure, it has heaps of pluses in its favour. Can you sense there’s a but coming?

The thing is, for some reason, just after 5am one morning on my way into work, I decided to look for the Sport within the Soul. And here’s what I discovered: the more you push it, the cheaper it feels. Which I know doesn’t really matter when it comes to a car like this – it’s just that everything felt instantly more raw and on the limit.

The engine began to wave the white flag, the rumble from the road became as palpable as it was audible, and the price tag became ever more transparent with each new mile. But hey, that’s why this car is not 10 grand dearer than it is.

Am I saying it’s not excellent value for money? Absolutely not, it’s worth every penny.

What I am saying is, I was early for work, I was keeping some spare time spare and I had the road pretty much all to myself.

Please God, let that be the case with the brand-new Ferrari GTC4 Lusso again next week. Stay tuned to find out.

PS. Remember the Alfa Giulia we raved about last week? Alfa has since had to restrict dealer numbers due to unprecedented demand.