First look: Kia Optima facelift revealed

YOU'RE looking at Kia's facelifted Optima mid-size car, which will be the third and final new model arrival from the South Korean car company in Australia in 2003.

It will also be the least significant in volume terms, with the updated Rio small car due in January and all-new Sorento off-roader now expected in late February or early March.

The Optima - Magentis in its home market - will not get here until the middle of the year.

While Kia Australia will look for volume returns in the thousands of units from Rio and Sorento, its ambitions for Optima will be much more modest.

Despite its keen pricing and better than average press reviews, just 163 examples of the well equipped 2.5-litre V6 Optima have been sold in Australia this year.

The primary goal of the Optima redo is to separate it more from its donor car, the Hyundai Sonata.

Obvious changes including swapping the grille from horizontal to vertical bars and trading in the single-lens headlights for smaller inner and larger outer dual headlights.

Kia Australia spokesman Edward Rowe said the restyle did not reflect marketing confusion between Sonata and Optima, but related more to the position of Kia and its parent, Hyundai.

"It's almost like the Citroen and Peugeot relationship. The Kia vehicles will be the more technically advanced," Mr Rowe said.

"They call it recreational vehicles in the broader sense of the term and you can see that most clearly in the differences between Terracan and Sorento.

"Sorento is a pure American-type SUV, Terra-can is a traditional four-wheel drive type-vehicle."* Kia's big car stocks are set to be boosted by a new model called the Opirus, which will be launched at the Geneva motor show next March.

The Opirus was developed over 20 months at a cost of about $US160 million, making it the most expensive passenger car ever developed by Kia Motors.

The top-end model in Kia's line-up, Opirus will be available in South Korea from spring 2003 and will be released in Europe around June and the US around August.

But it is not in the short-term plans of Kia Australia to bring it here. It would sit above Optima if it came, retailing for about $40,000 and vying with Sorento to be the most expensive vehicle in the local Kia line-up.

* Another new Kia that seems certain not to make it to Australia anytime soon is the restyled Carens II compact people-mover.

It was launched in Europe earlier this year but Mr Rowe said the Carens II had been specifically set to increase Kia's European market share because of the category's popularity there.

"It's not available to us to order yet," Mr Rowe said, also admitting "it's not at the front of our list."