You don’t need to scan the car price lists for too long to realise that the Kia Picanto is a bit of a throwback. At a time when practically every new car seems to be big and heavy, stuffed with batteries and electric motors - or a hybrid set-up - and draped in SUV bodywork, the Picanto is the antidote you’ve been looking for.
It’s tiny, for a start. There are very few properly small cars still on sale today. It’s the Picanto, its Hyundai i10 relation, the Toyota Aygo X, on-the-cusp-of-being-discontinued Suzuki Ignis and the been-around-since- Blair-was-prime minister Fiat 500. That’s about the lot.
Compact size, big surprises: The Kia Picanto’s Tardis effect
The Picanto might be dinky - it’s less than 1.6 metres wide - but the Tardis effect is strong. Kia has somehow managed to affix four proper doors, as well as give it a hatchback boot capable of holding a volume of 255 litres (or 1,010 litres if you fold the seats). All the fixtures and fittings from a bigger car are present and correct. They’ve even given it styling features borrowed from the company’s jumbo electric SUV, the EV9.
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Unlike Six Nations hookers, being small is the start of a virtuous circle when it comes to cars. Little cars don’t weigh much, so need less fuel to propel them, which means they are economical and cheap to run. The engine can be small, and because there’s less mass to bring to a stop, wheels and brakes can also be small. Fewer resources are needed to make the tyres, wheels and seats and windows, so they are cheap too and good for the environment. Unless you actually need a larger car, going small is a win-win.
Less weight also makes a car responsive, and therefore fun, to drive. The latest electric cars deploy plump bodywork with big wheels, fat tyres and complicated suspension systems in an attempt to disguise the weight of their batteries. But even the best of the breed don’t have the sharpness, the lack of inertia, innate in a small car. And they’re all corpulent compared to the Picanto, which weighs less than a tonne.
A throwback to simpler times: Fun and efficient driving
The template for this sort of the car is the original 1959 Issigonis Mini. Today’s BMW Mini might follow a different route - plusher and plumper, though still brilliant to drive - but the Kia Picanto keeps the flame burning for simple wheel-at-each-corner fun.
In keeping with the retro vibe, the Picanto has a five-speed manual gearbox and a 1.0-litre three-cylinder engine. There’s no hybrid system or trick transmission to get in the way. The engine is only a little more powerful than a domestic tumble dryer, unleashing a meagre 62bhp.
It matters not. Kia quotes a 0-62mph time of 15.4 seconds - so as well as being the least powerful new car on sale today it’s just about the slowest, humbled even by the Fiat 500. If you’re a glutton for punishment you can get the Picanto with an automatic gearbox, which takes almost 20 seconds to limp to 62mph from a standing start…
The automatic Picanto is a step too far, at least for this writer. But as far as the manual car is concerned, those unpromising figures don’t convey the verve and enthusiasm with which the Picanto goes about its task.
Kia Picanto performance: Slow but fun on city streets
Sure, it runs out of puff quickly, and makes a lot of noise if you try to keep up with diesel Golfs and white Transits on the motorway, but that’s not the point. The M1 is not really the Kia’s natural environment. Instead it’s at home darting around city streets, dodging the ignoramuses who block the yellow boxes in Belfast city centre’s congested roads and squeezing into parking spaces you wouldn’t even consider in an SUV. Multi-storey car parks become your playground in a car like the Picanto.
It’s also greatly enjoyable on a twisty country road - that lack of power means you can enjoy the sensation of driving at full throttle at sedate speeds, while the lack of weight yields swift reactions and the feeling that you are fully and safely in control of this little bundle of fun. The same basic ingredients - small size, low weight, just-right power and a rapid response chassis - are what have made the Mazda MX-5 such a brilliantly enduring driver’s car for decades.
Read more: Air max: The iconic Mazda MX-5 roadster is still the most fun you can have on four wheels for £30k
The Picanto is no MX-5 substitute, of course, but that back-to-basics spirit is there, and it stands out all the more because so few new cars are any longer this simple.
As I mentioned earlier, cars like this are a dying breed. The Ford Fiesta, for so long the default ‘small car’, is gone. So too are two sets of triplets which distinguished themselves in this sector: the Volkswagen Up, Skoda Citigo and Seat Mii; and the Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107.
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Affordability and value: The sweet spot for the Kia Picanto
Small cars have traditionally meant small - or no - profits for their makers, and the sheer cost of EV batteries means it is a struggle to make an economic case for tiny electric cars. Honda tried with its e model, but it cost £37k and has been killed off.
You can get into a brand new Kia Picanto for £15,595, which is not very much by contemporary standards. The most expensive version is a GT-Line S automatic, at £19,145. That’s too much for a car like this, and the sweet spot is probably a Picanto in the racy GT-Line trim I tested, which will set you back £16,745. It will do at least 50mpg all day, every day, too.
Kia now has one of the most complete ranges of cars on sale today, running from the Picanto to the seven-seat EV9, via the hugely popular Sportage and its brand new, and very desirable electric family car, the EV3.
Market and legislative pressures mean the Picanto and its diminutive ilk probably won’t be around indefinitely. We’ll miss them when they’re gone, but in the meantime we can thank Kia for carrying the flag for cars that are small, modest, cheap to run and fun to drive.
