Kia Soul: Drives Out of the Box!

If you get my Twitter of Facebook feed from the last week I'm sure you know that I had a blast test driving the 2012 Kia Soul for review. Though this car is classified as a sub-compact automobile where it may lack in room it makes up for in soul! My boys absolutely loved it and now when ever they see one on the road they look longingly at it and wish to have one as their "forever car". My mini-van is pushing 220,000 miles-I can assure you they're not the only ones letting out a long sigh of longing....Sigh.But I digress....back to the Soul. I really drove this car around. I had a great time driving to events during Brandcation, Bloggers Gone Coastal, because it afforded me the opportunity to drive other bloggers around in the Kia Soul. All the feedback I got from my blogger-colleagues was positive. If you know a blogger-you know they are generally unafraid to offer up their opinion so I was glad to hear their positive feedback as well. If you'd like to know the technical details about this car check out this review from Motor Trend My focus is more on the every day, busy writer-mama who spends a ton of time chauffeuring around two little boys. What I liked: It's cute, fun, and so very geek-chic from it's interior, with great little touches like "mood" lighting, and branded fabric, to it's tech-savy radio system, back-up assist (it's got a camera in the rear so you can see-really see what is behind you). The exterior is very square-in a Gap ad-totally-cool sort of way. Gas mileage was phenomenal. With a push of the "econ" button this car could go...and go...and then go some more, with out really taking away from the pleasure of driving this car. My youngest son's car seat was a breeze to connect with the easy to find "latch" system and it fit very comfortably and it left him with plenty of leg room to stretch out with out bugging the front seat. The trunk is small-but it's awesome. It' has this super compartment area where someone who is OCD like me can keep things organized. When I checked out it's safety rating I was very pleased to discover that it received the highest score of "Good" from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety for in their frontal offset, side-impact and roof-strength tests. Which means this car is not only fun to drive it's safe to drive. Kia gives a lot to their consumers. Standard on every Soul come the following features: Driver and passenger front air bags Dual front seat mounted side air bags Full length side curtain air bags Anti-lock Brake System (ABS) with Brake Assist Traction Control System Electronic Stability Control Tire Pressure Monitoring System 3 Point seat belts for all 5 positions The LATCH system for child seats What I disliked: Giving the car back.All opinions are my own. I was loaned this car for a week from Kia Motors to facilitate this review. Thank you Kia for a super fun week!