Category: City Cars 
Price Range: £5,995 to £7,995
Inexpensive, 1.0-litre's running costs.
1.1-litre exceeds 120g/km of CO2, tiny boot, poor ride.
Cheap, unassuming way of getting from A to B, but there are better, more-rounded city cars out there.
Kia's Picanto was a breakthrough car for the Korean firm.
In the past, the biggest attribute of Kia-badged models was their cut-throat pricing. They sold by providing a new car at a substantial saving over the car you really wanted to buy.
The Picanto was different. Sure, it also benefited from the firm's ruthless undercutting, but it had something so far lacking most of the brand's other offerings - talent. No ancient, rebaged Mazda, it was a capable bright new city car that could compete head-to-head with the very best in the class.
Four years on, it's time for a refresh. Banished are the terminally dull squared-off headlamps, swapped for a pair of curvier numbers, while the former car's ugly grille trades vertical slats for horizontal ones. These aesthetic tweaks don't quite miraculously translate the conservative Picanto into a contemporary and striking city car, but it's a considerable improvement over old.
Under the skin, the headline 2008 changes are limited to a more powerful (up 2bhp) 61bhp 1.0 model that now slips into VED band B with 117g/km of CO2. It's a shame that the only modestly more powerful 64bhp, cannot perform the same trick, returning 126g/km and putting it in Band C: expect that to be fixed soon, since the all-new Hyundai i10 with the same engine rolls in at 119g/km.
Besides the under-bonnet tweaking, inside the changes are minimal. The indicator stalks jumps from the right to the left-hand side of the steering wheel, the dials now glow orange and some quality is improved.
What the Picanto does miss out on is Kia's unbeatable seven-year, 100,000 mile warranty, making do with a more typical three-year unlimited mileage affair instead.
