Road test: Kia Optima Sportswagon

This definitely isn’t about getting bangs for your buck, but if you’re looking for masses of room for your money, then it should be worth a peruse. The Optima saloon hasn’t really done the business in Europe, so can this estate, which is Europe-only, crack the market better?

Certainly there are some encouraging signs. To start at the most shallow end, it looks good and, although such things are subjective, we reckon it’s a handsome vehicle so there’s some instant attraction there.

So, handsome and with a lot of vacant space inside. Sounds perfect. Actually it’s reasonably huge inside, with more luggage space than a Ford Mondeo wagon. There’s lots of room for passengers and, with the rear seats down, there is 1686 litres of stowage area, enough for a Hampton Court garden show shrubbery.

Some of that space is filled with a full array of standard kit. The Kia comes in trims 1, 2 or 3 and you get stuff like sat nav from 2 upwards. The top spec, the GT-Line S, gets buckets of the stuff including heated and cooled front seats. The downer is that the cabin feels fairly utilitarian in terms of colourways, design and materials, but it should prove durable.

Handling is pretty good, with a ride that’s perhaps a touch on the firm side but it means there’s little body roll to upset the passengers. Steering too isn’t bad at all, so overall this estate has better driving dynamics than the saloon.

What have we got so far? A handsome, sensibly priced car with tons of room for people and cargo, with a hard-wearing cabin filled with kit, and which handles decently. If that isn’t the perfect recipe so far for minicab drivers and those forced to go long distance with cargo then call us the knights who go Ni. There’s only one more thing that could make us the knights who go ekki-ekki-ekki-pitang-zoom-boing, and that’s a reliable, frugal engine.

And it’s got one of those. Which is a bit of a bore as it’s a mildly revamped version of the older 1.7 CRDi diesel. It’s more refined than it used to be but your ears will be in no doubt that you have a diesel engine up front when you put your foot down even reasonably hard.