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This is not the next Kia. But the tiny electric car that has won over Paris motor show is a glimpse into a future where our streets are populated by cute, animal-like vehicles.
For the moment, that vision is mainly in the mind of Kia's chief designer Peter Schreyer. But being the man who first famously penned the Audi TT, and has now started giving Kia design a makeover that is putting a new spotlight on the brand, he's proved that if there's something on his mind it usually looks good on the streets.
"We wanted this car to act as a loose nucleus, a wild atom," Schreyer says of the little hatch concept. "The POP doesn't point at the style of the next generation of cars, but looks even further into the future."
And what you see that far over the horizon is aimed at the smallest nucleus of a nuclear family. The ultra-compact concept seats three - two in the front and one angled in the rear.
It's been given an almost cartoonish version of the Schreyer 'tiger face' split grille and dressed in the kind of livery that can't help but attract attention, with purple accents on the body echoed in the cabin, strangely oblong side windows and a full glass roof.
Schreyer's team have had fun with the light clusters - which appear in a pattern of dots - and the backlighting the grille, giving the Pop even more of a science fiction flavour. That futurism carries through to the 'instruments', with the information appearing on a transparent display in front of the steering wheel. Rear vision is taken care of with cameras in each door.
But the most interesting part of the Pop is underneath all that colourful skin and gadgetry. It's a zero-emission, 190Nm electric motor powered by compact, but efficient, lithium polymer batteries. The battery bank can recharge fully in six hours - an easy overnight or work shift task - and give a maximum range of 160km and top speed of 140km/h.
And Schreyer admits he can see something like the Pop hitting the road for real - and using its 'cute and friendly factor' to endear its clean technology to buyers "Of course. I can see it very easily and I think it shows how we look at it.
"We did it not to prove that we can do an electric car, but to show how charming an electric car can be. At the moment it's a study (but) I think it would be nice to think what the roads would be like in a city if you had many of them like little animals running around. It will change the environment and to see the traffic would change the perception (of cars) . it would be quite nice."
And Kia's Australian office agrees it's probable we'll see the Pop spin off into a production car.
"Kia have a very good history of bringing concept into production," says their new chief operating officer in Australia, Tony Barlow.
"They don't waste time on pure concept. I think we've just got to watch the development of the electric cars, and the eco cars very carefully, see how the concept cars are running, with matching up what might be the opportunities in Australia. We're certainly very interested in moving in that direction."
