Kia Provo - the car money can't buy

The whitecoats at Kia wanted to showcase its new hybrid technology while not making everyone numb with boredom. So the designers at Kia’s German styling studio were allowed to go overboard and came up with this concept for this week’s Geneva motor show.

The “Provo” -- which means “I feel” in Italian -- appears to have been inspired by several in-vogue cars. The sloping roof and wrap-around windscreen could be borrowed from Mini and the stubby rear end from the BMW 1 Series. There are even hints of the Nissan Juke in the bulging fenders.

All we know is this mish-mash looks pretty neat, which means it’s probably definitely likely that it won’t make it into production. The good ones rarely do.

There could be one other reason we won’t see it in showrooms. The front end reportedly has 850 tiny LED lights that can be used as indicators, daytime-running lights, and low- and high-beams. Apparently you can even program a design to indicate your mood (smiley face, frown etc). The only problem this stuff is prohibitively expensive.

The press blurb doesn’t do Kia’s talented design team much justice either. It describes the Provo as “an emotional and muscular car aimed at delivering pure fun and performance for today’s city-based enthusiast driver who longs for the curves of the open road”.

The flowery description continues: “The potent shaping displays a balanced and refined outline within a compact overall shape and the tiny front and rear overhangs enhance the balance within its proportions.” We think this is meant to say it looks awesome. Meanwhile, here’s the boring stuff.

The Provo has a 1.6-litre direct injection turbo petrol engine (150kW) driving the front wheels while an electric motor (33kW) delivers power to the rear wheels to move the car from rest silently and miserly. Kia also says the Provo showcases the company’s first seven-speed twin-clutch automated transmission.

To save weight, most exterior panels are carbon-fibre, as is the dash. So you just know that’s never going to happen in Kia. It’ll become a dull grey plastic in a dull grey car one day. Which is a pity, because the interior on this show car is very classy.

As the chief designer at Kia’s Frankfurt studio, Gregory Guillaume, said in his press statement: “The interior is very, very black”.

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling