Colombian yellow
The Kia Picanto has been available for a long time in a somewhat strange-looking color yellow. The fact that Kia may want that color, but is not allowed to change it, has everything to do with the taxi market in Colombia. Really and truly!
‘Honey Bee’. That is the name of the color yellow that Kia has been offering on the Picanto for years and over at least two generations. It is without a doubt the happiest and most daring color in the Picanto range, but also a somewhat remarkable shade. It is kind of vanilla custard-like, not quite bright yellow, and therefore different from the signal yellow that we sporadically encounter with other brands.
That the color is as it is, however, has a good reason. During the introduction of the heavily facelifted Kia Picanto, a representative from Kia Europe whispered to us that some European representatives of the ‘Honey Bee’ brand would like to replace it with another yellow, but that this is simply not possible. Why not? Well, in Colombia – only in Colombia – the current Kia Picanto is supplied as a Kia Grand Eko Taxi (photos 4 and 5), a version specially aimed at the taxi market. Taxis in Colombia are always yellow and so is the Grand Eko Taxi, which comes exclusively in this typical yellow. As we all know, every penny counts in the A segment, so Kia cannot justify developing a different yellow color especially for other markets. So anyone who orders a yellow Picanto in Europe will receive exactly the color of a Colombian taxi. And now that we know that, we actually like such a yellow Picanto even more.
Kia Grand Eco Taxi
Kia Picanto
The ‘Grand’ in the name of the Colombian taxi seems to have been added to distinguish it from the previous Picanto, which is therefore called ‘Kia Eko Taxi’ as a taxi in Colombia. Whether the facelifted Picanto will also be available again in ‘Honey Bee’? No doubt only if the Colombian taxi market embraces it.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl