Kia has joined in the Super Bowl XLV fun with this ad promoting their new and quite stylish looking Optima. It’s a little over the top, it must be said, so no doubt the target audience will love it!
Category: Kia
The start of the new calendar year has seen a solid result in the new car market with 73,584 new vehicles finding homes. That’s a minor drop in sales of 1280 (1.7%) compared to January last year.
However, it is worth noting that sales in flood ravaged Queensland dropped by almost 2000 (12.8%) compared to the same month in 2010.
According to FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar, “New vehicle sales in Queensland have taken a hit as people concentrate on the flood recovery effort.
“We can expect sales in Queensland to be slower in the short-term but will pick up in the months ahead as people begin to look for replacement vehicles.”
Toyota, Holden and Mazda begin the year as the top three selling marques in Australia.
Congratulations Australia, for just the third time ever we have managed to send over 1 million new vehicles out the door. To be exact, 1,035,574 passenger cars, SUVs and commercial vehicles found new homes in 2010 and that represents an increase of almost 100,000 sales on 2009 figures.
“This is an exceptional outcome and is the second highest result on record and only the third time ever that the market exceeded more than one million sales,” FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar said.
“With continuing strong levels of vehicle affordability there is no reason why the new vehicle market won’t continue to perform better than other areas of the economy.”
Toyota was the highest selling marque in 2010, with 214,718 sales registered. Holden and Ford followed with 132,923 and 95,824 sales respectively.
Holden can claim still bragging rights, though, with the Commodore proving to be Australia’s most popular car for the fifteenth year in a row. Its 45,956 sales placed it ahead of the Toyota Corolla, on 41,632, and the Toyota Hilux, with an impressive 39,896 sales.
Meanwhile, a number of other marques are shouting from the rooftops about their new records set in 2010, including BMW, Hyundai, Mazda, Subaru, Suzuki and Volkswagen.
UPDATE 7 January: Audi, Kia and Mitsubishi have released their brag sheets today, too.
VFACTS recorded a moderate increase in sales last month, up 1509 vehicles from November 2009. FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar reckons the motor industry is performing well compared to other industries, “These figures show new car sales continue to outperform other economic indicators, including retail spending and business investment.
“Much of the strength of the market can be attributed to the affordability of new vehicles, evidenced by the healthy sales to private buyers (up 9.6% in November).”
McKellar predicts Australia will register over 1 million new vehicle sales in 2010, if so it will be just the third time this has happened.
Toyota, Holden and Ford maintain their positions as the top three selling brands.
Official VFACTS data released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) showed that 85,054 passenger cars, SUVs and commercial vehicles were sold in September, up 8.9 per cent (or 6,923 vehicles) on the same month in 2009. It also represents a new record for the month of September, beating the old mark (2005) by 584 sales.
Toyota and Holden retain their place at the top of the charts, while perennial top-three challenger Mazda has once again knocked Ford back to fourth place.
Year-to-date sales now tally 780,720 and the full year prediction has been raised to over 1 million, up from the previous forecast of 980,000. It would be only the third time in Australia’s history that 1 million new cars have been sold in a calendar year.
Press releases from FCAI and various manufacturers are available after the break.
Official VFACTS data released by the FCAI states 82,122 new vehicles were sold in August, up 12.1% on the same month in 2009. Toyota, Holden and Ford retain the top-three positions on the sales charts.
Press releases from FCAI and various manufacturers are available after the break.
Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz will appear in the next episode of Top Gear. They will be the guests at the wheel of the Kia Cee’d in the “Star in a reasonably priced car” segment.
The news has just been revealed by Richard Porter on TopGear.com. Porter explains, “Back in 2002 when we were planning New TopGear, we used to reflect on the newly minted idea of a star in a Reasonably Priced Car and cackle quietly to ourselves.
“‘Tom Cruise!’ we would smirk. ‘Tom Cruise in a crappy Korean hatchback!’
“That was the gag: massive A-list celebrities finding themselves shoehorned into the kind of car they’d normally never be seen dead in. The whole thing was deliberately preposterous.”
Episode 5 of Season 15 is shaping up as cracker with an Ayrton Senna tribute scheduled, as well as James May nearing 400km/h in a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.
[Source: TopGear.com | Pic: imdb.com]
If you haven’t caught up with the news the Kia cee’d is Top Gear‘s new Reasonably Priced Car. This fact was revealed overnight when episode 15×01 went to air on BBC2. Understandably the top brass at Kia UK are making some noise.
Stephen Kitson, Kia Motors UK spokesman said, “The last time Top Gear paid us any attention I think they tried to build one of our cars out of washing machines – so this is quite a step forward in their understanding of just how Kia has changed over the last six years.”
To see the cee-apostrophe-d in action on Top Gear you’ll need to scour the resources on the interwebz or just wait for Channel Nine to pull their fingers out.
Does this mean an end to those bloody annoying Todd Woodbridge ads is nigh?
Categories
Kia courts new audience
While out to dinner with a few mates a week or so back conversation turned AUSmotive. Specifically, I was soliciting opinions on how to further broaden its audience. One suggestion was to simply broaden the scope of manufacturers covered on said pages, with Kia being presented as one example. The suggestion was met with a chorus of oohs, ahhs and jolly well dones. Okay, maybe not.
But, while scouring the web the other day I came across this snippet at fellow blogosphere residency The Motor Report. Featuring the Kia nameplate I knew I was on to a winner here. It looks like Kia, too, have been chewing the fat over the dinner table as they have come up with the magnificent brainwave of having a Kia Performance Driving Team. It’s a match made in heaven and I’m just glad the big wigs at Kia HQ have finally made the connection.
The KPDT will be shooting the breeze during the 2010 Australian Open in Melbourne over the next week or two. After the jump you can see these guys practicing their moves. With great all-court coverage and superior acceleration the Kia Soul is sure to be a smash hit at Melbourne Park.
How’d I go, reckon that last sentence could be inserted word for word into the Kia press pack? Just check out the vid, and seriously, the moving figure-8 stunt is actually pretty bloody special. The degree of difficulty is right up there, that’s for sure.
[Source: The Motor Report]
Here is one last wrap up of images from the media day at the 2009 Melbourne International Motor Show.
There’s pics from Honda (Insight, Civic Type R), Hyundai (i10 Blue, i30 Blue, Genesis Coupé), Kia (Soul), Lotus (Europa SE), Suzuki (Alto), Toyota (fully sik RAV4, fully sik Yaris, Hybrid Camry) and a few other bits and pieces, including the AutoHorizon FR-1, a charity-based project helping young kids.
So, what was the media day like? I have to say I was a bit nervous attending with a room full of battle-hardened journos around me. However, it was not really an issue and it was pretty cool moving around from stand to stand with nobody looking at me funny when I went up to various cars and opened them up, taking photos or just generally pushing and prodding around. Certainly a bit different, and better, than attending the show as a member of the general public.
Personally, I didn’t make the most of the networking opportunities on offer. Something I’m usually not good at, so I guess I’ll need to work on that.
Overall, though, it was a fun and valuable learning experience. It’s interesting seeing how many different ways there are to pull a cover off a car. Or not! My flight time meant I missed the presentations from Ford, Holden and Toyota, so maybe I missed a few new and innovative sheet pulling techniques!
Full marks to the catering, too, the Asian style lunch provided was very tasty, and after a few hours following Glenn Ridge around from presentation to presentation I was pretty damn hungry.
It was a long day, getting up at 4:30am to catch a plane from Canberra to Melbourne and not getting back to the hotel until 5pm. Before turning around and going back to the show as a casual observer with my wife.
I hope the coverage on AUSmotive has been interesting for all the readers out there and the audio clips provided on a few of the posts have brought you a bit closer to the action.
See you in Sydney in October 2010!
Following the lead of Mercedes-Benz, two more manufacturers have donated cash towards the Victorian Bushfire Appeal.
Honda Australia, through its Honda Foundation, has pledged $200,000 to the cause. Joining Honda in today’s announcement is Nissan Australia and Nissan Motor Co. in Japan who will be offering a combined donation of $100,000.
Nissan Australia will also match donations made by its employees to the Australian Red Cross or Salvation Army. The company has also committed to a 100 vehicle loan fleet, allowing affected members of the public to apply for a free loan car, for a period of up to six months.
These announcements are a fantastic show of support and one would expect more manufacturers to follow in these very generous footsteps.
Where available, press statements from manufacturers are included after the jump.
UPDATE: Audi has made a “significant contribution” towards the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation which made a $1,000,000 donation earlier today.
Toyota has donated $100,000 to the Cricket Australia Bushfire Appeal. Ford also donated a Mondeo XR5 Turbo for auction, with all proceeds going to the appeal.
UPDATE 11 Feb: V8 Supercars have donated $100,000. (Source: The Australian)
BMW Group Australia has chipped in $100,000 plus other support.
UPDATE 12 Feb: News just in that Mitsubishi have donated $100,000 to the Appeal.
Holden has also come forward with a $152,000 (US$100,000) donation, via its GM Foundation, and a fleet of 300 loan cars available to bushfire victims for periods of 3-12 months. In addition to these pledges, Holden dealers nationawide have raised a further $200,000. (Source: news.com.au)
Update 13 Feb: The Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group announced last night that it is donating $300,000 towards the 2009 Victorian Bushfire Fund to assist individuals and communities affected by the devastating fires.
Image: sourced from The Boston Globe