Kia Cerato vs Holden Barina

What's the difference?

Three years after the fourth-generation Cerato small car rolled into Australian dealerships, Kia launched a mid-life facelift for the sedan and hatch range in mid-2021.

It ushered in styling tweaks including new headlights and Kia’s new logo, as well as more safety tech and a multimedia upgrade.

At the top of the range sits the warmed-up Cerato GT. It’s not quite Hyundai i30 N-level performance, more i30 N-Line. In other words, more than enough performance to keep most people satisfied and enough poke to get away quickly at the lights.

But is the updated version of Kia’s Cerato trying to be something it’s not, or is it a performance bargain?

Read on to find out.

The Holden Barina is a nameplate that is arguably better known than many of the others in the company’s line-up. It has been around longer than Trax, Equinox, Colorado, Trailblazer, Spark… in fact, longer than everything but Astra and Commodore.

The current-generation Barina itself has been around for a while, too: it launched way back in 2012, and it’s fair to say the market has moved on a long way since then. But so has the Barina, following a refresh late in 2016 - and it remains one of the roomier offerings in the segment, and one of the keener-priced cars, too.

In fact, it managed to run eighth in terms of sales in the declining light-car segment in 2017… and yet, with nearly 4000 cars sold, there are still plenty of people interested in the Barina model. 

So, does it still stack up?