The Kia K4 GT-Line Turbo Hatchback Is A Practical City Car That Isn’t A Boring Shitbox

One of the biggest problems with small cars in America is that, at least lately, small has meant cheap. And I don’t just mean inexpensive-cheap, I mean cheap-cheap — loud, unrefined, basic, primitive, hard-plastic-laden, etc. But for some people, a small car is the right car, and for those who don’t want to have to make big sacrifices to comfort, styling, and utility, there is good news: The Kia K4 GT-Line Turbo hatchback is here, and though it costs $33 grand, a quick drive in it convinced me it might be worth it.

There’s a reason why the Kia K4 sedan has become the brand’s second-best-selling vehicle in a country that doesn’t really love small cars: The car offers incredible value amidst an ongoing affordability crisis. The U.S. just doesn’t have enough inexpensive, good cars, and the K4 sedan fits the bill, with Thomas Hundal’s review’s headline reading “The Funky Kia K4 EX Is A Whole Lot Of Car For $25,165.”

Now imagine taking that handsome, inexpensive car, making it look even better, and making it even more useful. Say hello to the Kia K4 hatchback.

[Full Disclosure: Kia hooked me up with a night at a hotel in North Hollywood and basically forced me to stay there even though I live 30 minutes away. I’m grateful for it; it was quite cool. Also, Kia fed me some insanely good fried catfish. -DT]

What Is The Kia K4 Hatchback?

Kia is pretty thrilled with how well its K4 sedan is selling, and the hatchback is meant to build on that success by offering a new variant for folks who are “younger, more male, and more urban than [the] sedan buyer.” The brand had an entire presentation for us journalists, and as I am a huge fan of slideshows, I’m going to share some of it with you, dear reader.

The image above shows a pretty mediocre Venn Diagram, if we’re being honest (in that both circles each feature sporty and fun-to-drive), but that’s typical marketing; the point is that the hatch is supposed to be cooler, more fun, and more practical, whereas the sedan is supposed to be a bit classier. At least that’s what I got out of that slide.

You can see the hatchback’s unique bits over the sedan there in red — the roof and everything aft of the C-pillar. The K4 hatchback is 11 inches shorter but offers the same rear legroom, with an inch more headroom. Cargo room goes up over the sedan, too, as this handy table shows:

The K4 hatch comes in three fun colors and four boring ones:

And the interiors are actually quite cool if you go for the off-white or red options:

The base “EX” model (the other trims are GT-Line and GT-Line turbo) gets the boring black interior, and you sadly can’t get that base trim with gold exterior paint. What’s more, the base car and the regular GT-Line both get a 2.0-liter naturally aspirated 147-horsepower engine hooked to a CVT, while the GT-Line Turbo bolts a 190 horsepower 1.6-liter turbo four cylinder to an eight-speed automatic.

Only the base EX gets a torsion-beam rear suspension, whereas the GT-Lines offer an independent rear suspension that looks like this:

All K4s have a MacPherson strut suspension up front (see below); brakes are vented discs up front and solid ones in the rear, though the GT-Line gets bigger rears than the EX, and the GT-Line Turbo gets both bigger fronts and bigger rears.

Anyway, you get the idea. The Kia K4 hatchback is basically a more useful, sportier K4 that, like the sedan, appeals to younger people looking for tech and good looks. But enough of the presentation; let’s get to the review.

It Looks Fantastic

Kia had a bunch of “sparkling yellow” (gold) GT-Line Turbo cars sitting in our North Hollywood, CA hotel’s parking lot, and I have to say: They looked fantastic.

When the DRLs are off, I’m not the biggest fan of the nose, with its T-shaped vertical LED headlights, thin “Tiger Nose” grille between the headlights, and another gaping grille in black down below. But with the DRLs on, the design looks downright aggressive:

The rear and the side profiles, though, are simply sublime whether lights are on or off.

Here’s a clean look at just the gorgeous side profile:

The way the rear end narrows and then cuts off abruptly, along with the rather wide-looking haunches, it makes the car look like it’s driving 100 mph standing still (if you’ll excuse the cliche):

The only thing that seemed a bit off was that the gold paint looked blotchy:

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Otherwise, no notes. And the inside was equally as nice.

The Interior Is Lovely, And It’s Got The Tech

Hopping into the K4 hatchback, I immediately felt a sense of delight. The two-tone steering wheel and seats are just fun, the ~30-inch display ahead is crystal clear, and overall, the cabin just felt airy and pleasant.

Check out the decent rear visibility:

The screens ahead of the driver show important things like speed, tire pressure, door-ajar warnings, fuel state, coolant temperature, speed limit, engine RPMs, and it’ll even pop up the image from a blind spot camera when you hit the turn signal. On the screen just off to the right side, ahead of the windshield washer stalk, are the HVAC settings, and to the right of that is the big infotainment screen:

It’s a nice, wide screen, and it offers a bunch of fun “display themes,” including Toy Story, Disney, Star Wars, Spider-Man, and more. Here you can see a little bit of the Spider-Man theme in our car’s navigation icon, and you’ll notice the Spider-Man colors used in the speedometer and tachometer:

Switchgear is limited, but appreciated, with a physical volume roller that works as both an on-off push switch and an up-down rotary volume control. HVAC fan and temperature settings are satisfying rocker switches, while physical buttons for the multimedia system’s home screen, maps, media, setup, and more are simple push-switches:

The shifter is a classic T-handle; it’s a bit of a waste of space, and not particularly elegant, but it’s easy to use. Also easy to use is the wireless charging pad ahead of the shifter (a wireless charging pad that actually works!), and there are two USB-C ports and a cigarette lighter thoughtfully placed ahead of the shifter:

The back bench is spacious; I fit my five-foot-eight self in there with loads of legroom and headroom; even my 6-foot-something friend Tommy (from TFL) fit with nary a complaint:

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Cargo space, too, was plentiful:

And I’ve got to give a shoutout to Kia for offering a spare under the floor:

I don’t have much to complain about the interior overall; it seems to be made of reasonably high-quality materials, there’s plenty of space for passengers, plenty of storage cubbies, and it’s stylish. Maybe I think the door panels are a bit bland when viewed from certain angles (note the heated and cooled seats and the heated steering wheel), and I did have the infotainment system glitch out and reset when I tried to change themes; hopefully that gets stored out before these ship to customers.

Now let’s talk about how the machine drives.

It’s Way Nicer To Drive Than I Expected, But It’s No GTI

The gold GT-Line Turbo’s 190 horsepower and 195 lb-ft of torque pulling about 3,300 pounds offered an excellent power-to-weight ratio, and thanks also to a good eight-speed automatic, I found that accelerating up to freeway speeds was easy and brisk.

Here’s a video of me putting the pedal to the metal, before settling at a nice, quiet, comfortable highway cruising speed around 70 mph:

 

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I bet the 0-60 mph time is in the high-6-second range, which is solid, as is the car’s exhaust note. It’s nothing aggressive, but it’s at least there, and the car definitely feels a bit sportier as a result. But despite that nice acceleration and the exhaust sound, the truth is that the Kia K4 hatchback isn’t a hot-hatch, as became apparent when we hit the fabled Angeles Crest highway through the mountains.

Angeles Crest is a steep and dangerous twisty road through the San Gabriel Mountains, and though the drive reinforced the Kia K4 hatchback’s nice, quiet ride with limited road or wind noise, it definitely didn’t establish the car as a sporty machine. The suspension is soft in the corners, the transmission — even with paddles — often didn’t really do what the driver wanted it to do, and though the brakes felt strong and confidence-inspiring, the steering was just OK. Angeles Crest was probably not the ideal road if Kia’s goal was to emphasize the K4 hatchback’s strongest traits.

Still, it was good enough in the turns, and the freeway drive back featured plenty of potholes and nearby vehicles in traffic, and the car shrugged off the disturbances in a way that was genuinely impressive. Road noise, wind noise, other-car noise, road bumps — none of it stood a chance against what Kia’s dynamics and NVH engineers built into this little economy hatchback.

Kia had us journalists drive around the canyon roads about 50 miles north of LA near Palmdale, and though the K4 hatchback was far from unathletic, it was the refinement that kept standing out to me. “Man, this is a nice car,” I thought to myself.

Maybe it was because I thought I was going to be reviewing a $26,000 economy hatchback. Part of me wishes I had.

A Nice $33K Hatchback That Makes Me Curious About The $26K Base Car

Driving the Kia K4 hatchback GT-Line Turbo just made me want to drive the base “EX” model, because to me, it’s so much more impressive if an automaker can make a decent $26,000 car than if that automaker can make a good $33,000 car.

Here’s what Thomas said about the base powertrain on the Kia K4:

Prod the starter button with a foot on the brake pedal, and Kia’s two-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine sparks to life with the aggressive normalcy of a gas stove. With 147 horsepower and 138 lb.-ft. of torque on tap, it doesn’t exactly provide swift progress, but the butt dyno says that the zero-to-60 mph time should be on the quick side of nine seconds, and the CVT does a pretty good job of keeping the revs low in most conditions. With regular port injection, it’s exactly the sort of engine a compact car needs, something that’ll get the job done without being too high-tech for its own good. However, there is definitely a delay between pressing the throttle pedal and accelerating from a stop, which makes it hard to take off from a light eagerly yet smoothly. If locals near you tend to drive like maniacs, you’re going to notice this initial flinch.

Initial lag aside, there’s lots to love here once you’re up to cruising speeds. The cabin of the K4 is reasonably quiet although not quite as hushed as a Honda Civic, the suspension is soft enough to soak up minor road imperfections but buttoned-down enough not to result in TV cop chase levels of body roll when you fly down an on-ramp far closer to the speed limit than the ramp advisory speed, and the pleasantly weighted steering is extremely predictable, if light on feedback. What’s more, you sit proper low, although the steering column could use a bit more reach adjustment.

It sounds good enough, and if you can combine a good enough powertrain with a nice overall design and good practicality at the low-low price of just over $26,000… well, that sounds good to me, even if Kia sees the hatch topping out around 20 percent of all K4 sales, with the sedan representing 80.

The Mexico-built K4 hatchback will hit markets any day now, and I bet it will be a hit internationally. As for the U.S., I have no idea. I hope people buy these, though fuel economy (28 MPG combined for the turbo, 30 MPG for the base vehicle) isn’t much better than a similarly-sized crossover, and I myself might prefer the Mazda3 hatchback despite its older cabin and bad rear visibility, as it offers a stick, and automatic models offer AWD at a similar price.

Top graphic image: David Tracy