2022 Wheels Car of the Year contender: Kia Carnival

If your idea of family planning is to spurn any and all form of contraception, there’s hope beyond buying a 12-seater Toyota Hiace with a solid rear axle and leaf springs. You could buy a Kia Carnival.

Bringing back memories of the 2003 Honda Odyssey – low and wide, and launched with a scandalous advertising campaign that wouldn’t fly 20 years later – resident designer Ferlazzo said it best as the judges perused the new fourth-generation Carnival at the start of its COTY bid: “As close as you can get to a ‘sexy people mover’ ... if that’s possible.”

Kia’s bold eight-seater is 5.1 metres long – 40mm more than the outgoing model, 30mm of that in the rear overhang – but where the old Honda Odyssey blurred the lines between people-mover and station wagon, the new eight-seat Carnival is more like a people-mover-cross-SUV.

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With perhaps the tiniest dash of sports car. Its short front overhang, masculine presence and chiselled dimensions certainly had the judges soaking it all in. A people mover!

But the initial excitement of the walkarounds – including folding down the second row to reveal a luggage space of 2905 litres, aping almost a Boeing C-17 – cooled as we rolled the fourth-generation Carnival out on to the Anglesea proving ground. The variant we chose was the 2151cc turbo-diesel as installed in the top-spec Platinum, with every bell and whistle imaginable – as you’d hope for $67,580 before on-road costs.

“Easily the best of a scant and largely unloved segment” - Curt Dupriez

Unsurprisingly, it feels truly cavernous inside – you’ll never be wanting for space. A beautiful relationship between throttle calibration and turbodiesel torque means you can’t help but fold the central arm-rest down and fat-arm the Carnival everywhere.

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There’s a certain La-Z-Boy quality about it. Predictably soft, comfortable suspension and a long wheelbase give the impression the Carnival could make 1000km feel an awful lot shorter. And with 6.5L/100km claimed consumption, you could theoretically do that on just one fill of the diesel’s 72-litre tank.

And around the proving ground it was difficult to fault for what it is. With a bit of squat, it was easy to bother the front tyres with too much throttle resulting in wheelspin, especially on dirt, making you think it would be a better vehicle with all-wheel drive.

But for its size, it did everything better than we’d expected it to, from handling to braking, even if it was a bit of a cruise liner through the lane-change. (You might be tempted to smash a champagne bottle on the front of it soon after purchase.)

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But while the Carnival does a rock-solid job of its intended purpose, in the company of every other car at COTY – especially some of its South Korean brethren, the Palisade especially – it merely shined while others sparkled against all the criteria. It opted for a solid rather than spectacular showing – and left the judges to nit-pick.

“The seats are too firm and lack long-haul comfort,” said Curt. “Mid-grade Si a sweeter spot.”

“Didn’t notice as much engine noise in the Palisade. Certainly less refined at idle,” said Inwood.

And so even in the face of things like a seven-year warranty, the Carnival was knocked out in the first round. Rest assured, it would have beaten a Hiace. Soundly.