The 2013 Kia Rio is the clearest indication to date that good looking, well built, well engineered and well-equipped cars can also be very affordable. Kia has worked out the perfect formula for car manufacturing. Hire German and Italian designers, poach some of the brightest engineers out of Europe, perform localisation tests for each market but keep production in South Korea. The Kia Rio is actually the work of Massimo Frascella, an Italian car designer who’s had a hand in designing cars for Ford, Land Rover, Jaguar and even Aston Martin. He was also in charge of designing the highly praised Kia Sportage. The Kia Rio is reasonably good to drive. Its chassis is surprisingly talented and alive, and the car delivers a decent amount of enjoyment when pushed along. The Rio is a solid, well-equipped and reasonably refined subcompact. From tip to stern, the Rio’s an absolute beauty. It’s avant-garde, sporty, sophisticated—there’s absolutely no weak point in the Rio’s design.