Kia Carens at the Paris motor show 2012 The new Kia Carens has got to be the most compact seven-seater on sale: it comes in five-seat form too but sales will be negligible - if you wanted a conventional five seated Kia, you'd go for a probably go for a C'eed Sportwagen. There are three separate seats in the second row, which fold, slide and heat individually, with the third tier understandably squished but nonetheless useable. The engine range comprises two petrol and two diesel units, with six-gear manual or auto transmissions. The current Carens starts at £12,705, and although UK pricing hasn't been signed off, you can expect "a 5 to 10 per cent increase" in the cost when it goes on sale in March/April. Kia is currently the fastest growing car brand in Europe, and next spring also marks the arrival of the facelifted Procee'd, the company's good-looking three-door hatchback, at which point design director Peter Schreyer's successful reinvention of the brand will be complete.