such as leather upholstery, a navi system, rear-view camera, and a climate control system. That bumps the price up $8,800. As an urban runabout, the Soul does the job. While not the liveliest econobox out there, it's more than peppy enough for most typical buyers, easy to park, with good entry and exit, and understandable controls and switchgear. As well, those models equipped with the automatic have an "Eco" feature that, at the press of a switch, electronically recalibrates the automatic transmission and increases fuel economy (while decreasing performance). Don't much care about the illuminated "mood lamp" speakers, but they're harmless enough. Kia is claiming 7.9 litres/100 km in the city for the automatic transmission version, and that's decent enough. By way of comparison, Nissan's Cube is a titch thriftier in town, but thirstier on the highway, while the Scion xB is a veritable gas hog in comparison. But I don't care. Were I in the market for a vehicle like this -- and I have actually briefly considered buying an xB -- the Soul's outward appearance would stop me cold. I actually felt self-conscious nipping around in my test car. The fact that it had a loud "molten red" paint job didn't help much. Consumer Reports gives the 2012 Soul an overall score of 66 out of 100. This is based on a 50-point evaluation program and the highest score it has recorded in this category is 85, while the lowest is 49. Interestingly, the majority of people who