If the styling was any more American, Kia could have called it the ‘Kadillac’. The first-generation Magentis landed here in 2001, five years before Peter Schreyer ditched Audi for the chance to hang a black suit jacket from the rear window of his company Kia. These were the days before Kia injected some Germanic flavour into its interiors; when it was less about the ‘tiger nose’, and more about Kia finding its tiger feet.
There was nothing neat about Kia’s range. The Rio, Mentor and Shuma were miserable, while the Carens, Sedona and Sportage were mediocre at best. It would be wrong to class the Magentis as a giant leap over the Clarus, but it was certainly one small step in the right direction for the brand. A three-star review in CAR was a real buzz and a sign that Kia was on course for stardom.
At its launch in September 2001, the Magentis LX cost a fiver shy of £13,000. To give that figure some context, that’s the equivalent of £24,000 in today’s money. A small price to pay for a four-door saloon with a 2493cc 24-valve V6 engine. Britain’s cheapest V6-engined car for the price of a base-spec Ford Focus. Impressive, even if the seven-year warranty was little more than a twinkle in the Kia marketing team’s eye.
Magentis customers who laughed in the face of residual values would have opted for the comically good SE model. Even more bells and whistles, properly nice leather upholstery (honest) and a Porsche-developed sequential gearbox were the highlights. It’s enough to make the electric aerial erect with excitement. All this for a bargain £15,995: a price that would have helped to offset the rapid depreciation and unquenchable thirst. Officially, the Magentis V6 auto would deliver around 26mpg – fine in the US (where the Magentis was known as the Optima), but not so good when you’re filling up with Optimax in the UK. The 2.5-litre V6 version was short-lived in the UK, with the LX downsizing to a 2.0-litre engine in 2002, before the V6 was ditched altogether in 2004. A year earlier, Kia restyled the Magentis, killing the ‘Kadillac’ vibe and introducing a new, slightly odd look. A touch of Mercedes, perhaps, making it sort of Korean ‘K-Class’. Where’s the man with the Philippe Starck glasses when you need him? Oh, he’s still basking in the glory of the Audi TT.
I only have eyes for the pre-facelift V6, ideally with the touched-by-Porsche H-matic transmission. From the CAR review in 2001: ‘Kia has a very specific picture in mind of the typical Magentis V6 buyer: a middle-manager retiring and giving up a bog-standard medium company car, wanting something bigger and more comfy but not looking to blow the pension all at once.’ On the page opposite was a review of the new Skoda Octavia vRS, a car I went on to buy in 2005. A quarter of a century on from the launch of the Magentis, I find myself fancying the wafty Kia more than the racy Skoda. Indeed, the Magentis is second only to the Enterprise on the list of Kias I want to own. Yep, the Magentis is above the outrageously good, and future classic, Stinger GT S.
I’ve had a good run of Guilty Pleasures: there have been no calls for me to leave my car enthusiast badge at reception. Maybe I’m not alone in my love of the Safrane, Impian and Probe. Is the Magentis a guilty secret too far? Maybe, but at least I’ll have the wheels for a new career as a minicab driver. And I won’t even have to blow the pension all at once. Taxi!
This story first appeared in issue 4 of Classic.Retro.Modern. magazine.
