2017 Kia Soul Facelift Will Make European Debut in Paris, Adds 1.6 T-GDI Engine

We first laid eyes upon the 2017 Kia Soul exactly one month ago, when it made its debut and went on sale in South Korea. Now, though, Kia has confirmed the Soul will get dressed in its finest jacket for the 2016 Paris Motor Show. Hence, next week we’ll see the Euro-spec model up close and personal before it goes on sale all across the Old Continent in late 2016.

Although plentiful, exterior modifications haven’t changed the visual character of the Soul too much. It just made it more hip, more alluring to youngsters as a means of personal transportation. Everything, from the updated tiger-nose front grille to the redesigned daytime running lights and fog lights, help the Soul get in with the in crowd. The interior also benefits from small updates, including a selection of funky color combos.

But visual freshness isn’t all there is to the face lifted Soul. Some people will be more thrilled to find out that Kia has made the Soul safer than before. The key update in this regard is Blind Spot Detection with Rear Cross Traffic Alert. For the more tech-savvy among us, the big news is the integration of Android Auto (Android 5.0 or newer), as well as Apple CarPlay (iPhone 5 or newer).

The big news, however, is the addition of the 1.6 T-GDI engine. The 1.6-liter turbocharged unit is pretty much the same powerplant you might find in the cee’d GT warm hatch, with 201 horsepower (204 PS) and 195 lb-ft (265 Nm) available to play with. And just like the cee’d GT, the Soul 1.6 T-GDI comes exclusively as a front-wheel-drive affair. But then again, this is a crossover in tune with city life, not rutted roads, green lanes, muddy fields, or sand dunes.

In combination with the 7DCT seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, the 2017 Kia Soul 1.6 T-GDI is pretty quick for this type of vehicle. 0 to 60 mph (96 km/h) in 7.5 seconds is no slouch. By comparison, the most powerful model in the Renault Captur range, which is 80 horsepower down on the most powerful Soul, struggles to hit that in 10.7 seconds.

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