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All-new Kia Picanto named as the ‘Bargain of the Year’
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Design chief Peter Schreyer selected as one of the ‘Men of the Year’
(SEOUL) November 30, 2011 — Kia Motors Corporation is delighted that the all-new Kia Picanto and its Chief Design Officer, Peter Schreyer, have received honors in the BBC Top Gear Magazine annual awards announced today.
The Picanto has been named ‘Bargain of the Year’ and Schreyer was selected as one of the ‘Men of the Year’ in the special awards issue, published on 30 November 2011.
The Picanto has been showered with awards since its launch in Europe during June this year and BBC Top Gear Magazine wrote of the car, “Finally, here’s a Korean supermini that you might choose over, say, a Fiat 500. You want a bargain? The car we have here is a touch over 10 grand (£10,000 GBP), but you can have one for under eight. That’s two grand less than the cheapest Cinquecento, and – for our money – it’s the better car.
“This is the Picanto, our ‘Bargain Car of the Year’, a fluorescent metaphor for South Korea’s journey from the havoc of wartime to economic enormity. A prime example of how this place is spooking big businesses, not just with cheap substitutes, but with properly desirable stuff, from smartphones to tellies to cars,” the magazine added.
Peter Schreyer – the man behind the team that created the Picanto’s strong identity – was selected as one of the ‘Men of the Year’ for his clear design leadership at Kia.
The commendation said, “Good design is basically about creating products people want to buy. Peter Schreyer has presided over that process at Kia with impressive fortitude and skill.”
Schreyer commented, “I am hugely honored by BBC Top Gear’s generosity both to me and, more importantly, to our Picanto. I have said before that it is incredibly rare for a designer to be given a clean sheet of paper when joining a company – but I think with this award, the bravery of that decision has clearly paid off!
“Top Gear is famous around the world as probably the most independently minded magazine, staffed with car enthusiasts who are not afraid to say what they think – so this award truly excites every one of us within Kia,” he concluded.
The full story behind the annual awards can be read in the BBC Top Gear Magazine Awards issue that is on sale at newsstands from today in the UK and in 27 countries around the world.
Global sales of the new Kia Picanto, which is manufactured exclusively in Korea, have totaled 158,427 from January to October of this year.
