Kia Picanto GT culled as facelift looms

Kia Australia has confirmed the peppy little Kia Picanto GT will be retired in the fourth quarter of 2023 when the facelifted MY24 Kia Picanto micro-car line-up arrives in Australian showrooms with no direct replacement for the 1.0-litre turbo-triple flagship.

Instead, Aussie city-car buyers will have to settle for the free-breathing 1.2-litre four-cylinder that powers the lesser GT-Line and S variants of the Picanto, which currently outputs 62kW/122Nm compared to the GT’s more muscular 74kW/172Nm.

There is of course a chance the 1.2-litre mill and the naturally-aspirated 1.0-litre engine that sits below it in other markets will be uprated to help fill the void left by the retiring GT flagship’s departure.

The silver lining is that the facelifted Picanto is dispensing with its current four-speed automatic transmission in favour of a new five-speed automated manual that’s said to combine the “fuel efficiency of a conventional manual transmission with the convenience of a hassle-free automatic transmission”.

Kia Australia says local pricing and specification details of the new model will be announced closer to its local launch.

Meantime, however, the heavily updated city-car has been confirmed to feature a raft of advanced driver assists and safety systems including the latest iteration of forward collision avoidance (AEB), blind-spot collision-avoidance assist, lane keeping assist, driver attention warning, leading vehicle departure warning, intelligent speed limit assist, lane following assist and emergency stop signal.

Odds are some of these systems will only be offered on the GT-Line but it’s still good to see even the smallest cars on our roads progressing with the times and including more advanced safety tech.

Passive safety will be enhanced too, thanks to a stiffer front subframe and hot-stamped B-pillar, which are said to better disperse impact energies.

A stiffer body shell should also help improve cornering dynamics, while the new 8.0-inch floating infotainment system will support Kia Connect telematics and feature multi-Bluetooth compatibility.

Smartphone mirroring will be standard across the range, as will online voice, online navigation routing service and over-the-air (OTA) updates.

The updated Picanto was leaked almost a month ahead of time in June, which means there are no real surprises as far as the exterior design is concerned, but it’s fair to say the Korean brand’s smallest offering has clearly taken some inspiration from what will be its biggest locally-offered stablemate, the Toyota LandCruiser-size Kia EV9 seven-seat electric SUV.

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