Today, Kia is a brand with an established position in the United States, offering, among others: Allusion can be seen on all our roads. Kia brand only he showed up here about 30 years ago, although the first ones were the Sephia sedans. Here is one of these now uncommon cars, found in self-service car graveyard in the Denver area Lately.
I looked for a discarded 1994-1996 Sephia for years, but they were inexpensive, disposable cars, and most had been crushed long ago; second generation models (1997-2003) are much easier to find today. Then I got a tip from Mason, a seasoned enthusiast of the underrated Centennial State iron who runs an excellent company Instagram account Unloved Cars of Colorado, about Sephia with a production date of 1994 at a local cemetery. He had seen this car listed a bit earlier when it was for sale on Facebook Marketplace and saved the screenshots. Yes, a working, running car with archaic tags and a few minor problems wouldn’t sell even at that low a price! What’s wrong with the world?
The construction label indicates that the machine left the Hwaseong factory in August 1994, six months after four dealers in Portland, Oregon began selling Sephia. Later that year and today, other Kia dealerships opened in other parts of the Western United States Junkyard gem was sold during this period. Those of you familiar with elderly Fords may notice that the construction label sticker on the driver’s door is almost identical to the one on the company’s Dearborn machines slow 70’s until the early 1990s, and there’s a good reason for that.
Kia Motors started in the car industry by producing vehicle licenses in South Korea for other companies, mainly Mazda, but also Peugeots and Fiats. Ford then partnered with Kia to build an American version Kia’s pridebased on Mazda 121which was sold here as the Ford Festiva for the 1988–1993 model years (and after the second generation Pride entered the market as the 1994–1997 Ford Aspire).
Here’s a 1990 Festiva build tag that has the exact same sticker as the ones that appeared on the ’90s Kia. Why reinvent wheel sticker even if Ford DSO codes are completely irrelevant at Kia?
Later in 1995, Kia was joined by the Sportage mini-SUV. later Kia Motors declared bankruptcy in 1997 and was absorbed by Hyundai Motor Company in 1998. Since then, Kias has become increasingly hyundized.
How inexpensive was this car? This is a base RS model with a manual transmission, so its MSRP would be $8,495 (about $17,722 in 2024). The 1995 Hyundai Elantra sedan started at $10,199 ($21,277 after inflation), while entry-level Saturn SL sedan (which almost no one bought) could be had for as little as $9,995 ($20,951 today).
This 16-valve SOHC engine certainly looks like a member of the Mazda B family, and it is. Displacement is 1.8 liters, power output was 125 horsepower and 108 lb-ft.
The automatic transmission added $950 ($1,982 today) to the price of the 1995 Sephia, so the original buyer of that car stuck with the base five-on-the-floor manual transmission.
Air conditioning? Not for 850 bucks, thank you very much (that’s 1,773 in today’s dollars).
The year is 1997 Air Force Academy parking sticker on the bumper, so it would appear that this car has spent all or most of its life in Colorado.
Phil Long Kia in Colorado Springs continues to operate to this day.
This is not gem in the sense that it was a great car (although one could argue that when it was recent it was quite good value for money), but it is certainly a gem in automotive history.
Why not take on the Honda Civic straight away? The cheapest possible Civic sedan for 1995 was the DX, which had an MSRP of $11,980 (about $24,992 today). Of course, 1990s Hondas tended to last many, many, many, many miles, but if you’re a novice, it’s best to aim high.
This ad is a blatant rip-off (or homage, if you prefer). the eminent AMC Rebel “Driving School” commercial from 1969right down to the instructor’s horn-rimmed glasses.
Sephia’s national TV commercials featured screaming engines and macho voices. Seh-PEE-Yes!
