Kia Stonic

The medium SUV segment is the hot one to watch at present, but that’s not to say nothing else is happening in SUV space. In fact, the second most hotly contested segment is the small SUV segment which, with its close links to one-time popular small car segment, should come as no surprise to anyone.

Compact SUVS have actually come under the spotlight recently with the arrival of a raft of models. Actually, the Compact title is something of a misleading one as they actually have considerably more space in them than many might think.

In fact, it’s only when you load them to maximum capacity you can see where the Compact nomenclature comes from, otherwise, when you have say, three people and some stuff, the vehicle feels like a perfectly normally-sized SUV.

Does then a Compact SUV fit into the fleet vehicle picture? Absolutely! Think of the Compact SUV the way you might once thought of a ‘pool car.’

As a fleet owner, you are obliged to supply fit-for-purpose and safe vehicles for your team. If you are used to pool cars from days gone by, then the idea of a Compact SUV should be an easy concept to work with.

The Compact SUVS sit high, they utilise clever space and of course, they are loaded with features which pool cars traditionally have never had.

But everyone’s jumped on the bandwagon and most carmakers have a Compact SUV or a compact SUV available, so which do you choose?

Unlike larger SUVS, there’s less focus on the demographics from the automakers when it comes to Compact SUVS, since most Compacts are designed to be the second family vehicle rather than a fleet option, but automakers don’t always see where their vehicles are going to end up.

It does mean the fleet buyer is a little spoilt for choice, which means you’ll just have to trust us to look at a couple of hot little numbers which might do the business for your business.

First up our contender from the US and the UK and ultimately Romania (yeah, we were surprised by that too) the all-new, no-hidingbehind-marketing-hype Ford Puma.

It’s rival? The bantamweight out of Korea, a new ray of sunshine in a very bold yellow, the Kia Stonic.

And since Ford took title role in our last comparison, this time, we’re catching the Seoul train to check out Kia’s new groove.

KIA STONIC LIMITED

The Stonic was announced hot on the heels of the still immensely popular Kia Seltos and Kia New Zealand played it’s usual “build up the excitement and pre-orders, vehicle unseen” game. And why not? The formula has worked for every other model.

For Stonic, the pre-emptive interest was a hot, smoking gun, as the moment the cars came off the boats, it was amazing they ever made the dealerships with the presold figures looking like Kia NZ might have underestimated the uptake.

If there hadn’t been the enthusiastic response to the littlest SUV in the Kia line-up and the baby SUVS had just landed here, I reckon there would have been some serious cases of surprise and delight since the Stonic is positively jammed to the gills with contemporary features which realistically, you’d expect to find in the next price bracket up.

You have forward collision avoidance assist, rear cross traffic collision avoidance, blind spot collision avoidance, driver attention alert, lane keep assist and a complement of six airbags.

Smart cruise control and hill start assist are coupled with satellite navigation which doubles as a rear-view monitor with dynamic guidelines.