I recently went to drive the Kia Soul.

This is probably not a car that immediately springs into your automotive consciousness. But it’s an interesting one. It has the looks of an urban 4×4/SUV; the length of a supermini; but a vastly spacious interior for its size.

In addition, there are various special editions that Kia will rotate on its price list as and when called soul Originals. Their names are Samba, Shaker and Burner. While the standard Soul models will have business appeal, the Originals appeal more to a youth market.

I caught up with Simon Hetherington, Kia’s marketing director, who admitted it was a difficult car to place. “It’s not a direct competitor to anything. And it doesn’t replace a vehicle in our line-up,” Simon told me.

“In fact, you could make three or four different claims for it. It’s a Fiesta class car; it’s an image car like the Fiat 500 or MINI; and so on. Whatever you think the Soul is, it offers SUV functionality, lots of space, but in a Fiesta-sized car.”

While I think claims that it’s a Fiat 500 image rival are slightly wide of the mark, the idea of the Originals is different: and I’m all for cars that bring change and innovation to the market. So we’ll see how this one goes.

You can read the road test of the Kia Soul 2 here: The supermini that thinks it’s an SUV.

Also read blog 149 Kia looks to service small businesses. Supermini that’s an MPV…sort of