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From the moment L.A. Clippers forward Blake Griffin jumped over a Kia Optima in the dunk contest his rookie year, we pretty much all knew that Griffin was destined for big things. Since then, he not only has gotten himself a great endorsement deal with Kia (including a new one for the 2013 Kia Optima, which we’ll get to in a second), but has transformed into a major, major NBA star. The aforementioned campaign features a couple of new commercials starring Griffin and the ’13 Optima, both of which carry the same levity as earlier ad spots. more In both, Griffin starts off driving the new Optima and using the Uvo infotainment system as a time machine so he can visit his childhood self to give him advice about life to come. In one, he tells “young Blake” to work on his free throws, which is funny for NBA fans because Griffin is notoriously awful at those. In the other spot, “young Blake” is playing football, when the elder him from the future tells him he’s involved with the wrong sport. Both are as iconic as we’ve come to expect from a Blake Griffin Kia commercial. He’s got a great deadpan humor that works well in these kinds of ads, and when it comes to the 2013 Kia Optima, Libertyville customers couldn’t ask for much more from a commercial. Griffin isn’t doing dunk contests anymore, but he doesn’t really have to. He’s already solidified his relationship with Kia thanks to the craziest dunk ever, and boy are we ever grateful for that.

We’re guessing you remember the pictures of that awesome Batman-themed Kia Optima we posted last month because, let’s face it, that isn’t an automobile you soon forget. In that post, we promised that Kia would be pairing other models with other DC superheroes at this year’s SEMA show, and we’d like to show you the rest of the set now. more The Flash Kia Forte Koup – As you can image, this follows a red-and-yellow color scheme, with plenty of “flashy” lightning painted all over the gorgeous Forte concept’s exterior. The designers also added 20-inch Asanti wheels, a coil-over suspension, and a beast of a sound system that features two 10-inch subwoofers. Apparently, The Flash loved to bump his tunes. The Aquaman Kia Rio5 – A custom Aquaman logoed grille is the first thing to pop out at you with this car, but the green rims, gorgeous paint job, LED wheel rings, green leather seats, and 20-inch wheels are hard to miss, too. Green Lantern Kia Soul – Mirror-finish green tinted windows and Green Lantern logos in the headlights are what make this particular custom Kia job so sweet, but the black-and-green paint job, logoed wheels, and green LED lighting also helped turn this one into a showstopper at SEMA. There was also a Cyborg-themed Kia Forte hatchback on display at the show, but hardly any casual fans know who Cyborg is. In any event, for fans of Kia in Libertyville, 2013 Kia Rio models and 2013 Kia Forte models that look this awesome are hard not to love. These aren’t quite as mind-blowing as the Batman Optima, but you know, they’re definitely close.

Well, folks, we’ve been talking about an upcoming redesign of the Kia Sorento for several months now, and earlier in October we finally got to see some pictures of what the 2014 Kia Sorento is going to look like. First reaction: Dang, that thing is smooth. Second reaction: Dang, that was a fast turnaround for a model that only came out in 2010. It seems like our engineers started working on a new iteration of the Sorento the minute the first one hit dealerships, but that’s perfectly fine because Kia has become known as a brand that bucks tradition by putting out updates and generational upgrades quicker than other automakers. It’s part of what makes us so gosh-darn special. As for the new Kia Sorento, Kenosha drivers are going to love what we’ve come up with. Philosophically, the largest change in the new version was to create a smoother drive, and we were able accomplish that by lowering the ride height and redesigning the platform to make it stiffer and stronger than the current model. Toss in our Motor Driven Power Steering system, new suspension elements, and finer-tuned shocks, and you’ve got yourself a much more entertaining SUV to drive. Aesthetically things have changed a little too; the roof is lower and there are more aerodynamic elements to the design. There are new headlights, a new rear fascia, and an overall shorter, wider appearance. Personally, we love it, but obviously we’re a little biased. Still, we’re willing to bet that our customers are going to love it, and by sometime in early 2013, they’ll get that opportunity when it hits our lots.

Some people like Batman. Other people are aliens from outer space that have never heard of Batman. There is no gray area. That’s why it made perfect sense for Kia Motors America to put together a special Batman-themed edition of the 2013 Kia Optima as part of DC Entertainment’s “We Can Be Heroes” campaign, which raises money to support residents in the Horn of Africa who aren’t getting the food they need to survive. As a ploy to raise awareness for this charity, Kia, DC, and the good folks at RIDES magazine teamed up to assemble what might be the coolest custom Kia we’ve ever seen. For starters, the car is painted in a sleek black matte finish, except for a giant Batman logo in a piano black finish angled across the side panels. But it’s also got a custom grille shaped like a bat, gorgeous black-and-yellow 20” wheels, killer ground effects, and even little bat-signals in the headlights. We’re being absolutely serious when we say Bruce Wayne himself would be crazy not to own such a vehicle, and we’re insanely jealous that we can’t be fortunate enough to take one home, too. Here’s the good news about this custom 2013 Kia Optima, Libertyville Kia fans: it’s only the first of eight special edition Justice League cars that we’ll see. Coming up next will be some combination of Soul/Sorento/Sportage/Rio/Forte and Superman/Wonder Woman/Green Lantern/The Flash/Aquaman/Cyborg. If these combinations lead to anything as marvelous as the Batman Optima, we’re all going to be in for quite a treat.

We know full well that, in a lot of ways, the Kia Soul is one of the hippest, most modern vehicles on roads today, and that has everything to do with its trendsetting design, great fuel economy, and memorable ad campaigns. However, one very modern bit of automotive technology has thus far been kept out of the Soul—full electric motor capabilities—but thankfully that’s going to change once the updated 2014 model hits dealerships next year. more EVs are growing increasingly popular with certain makes and models proving to be relative successes, but we think that by making one version of the Soul into a fully electric vehicle we’ll be able to latch onto a whole new consumer base that loves our vehicles but would also love something a little more environmentally friendly that would also allow the freedom of never having to stop at a gas station ever again. We don’t know much about the plans for this vehicle yet, other than the EV system will debut in the next-generation 2014 Soul, but we do know that there are electric vehicles out there getting well over 100 MPGe, and that’s the kind of train we Chicago Kia Soul dealers would absolutely love to board. The Optima already has a hybrid version, but we like the idea of going even greener with future models, especially something as potentially successful as a Soul EV. Obviously, there’s a bit of a wait before we see how this all pans out, but calling it exciting is an understatement. This could be a game-changer for the way we build Kia vehicles moving forward.

We here at Classic Kia like to brag about our corporate sponsorships because, honestly, we’re proud of the organizations we choose to align ourselves with. Our relationship with the National Basketball Association, for example, has been extremely lucrative for us already, and it gets better and better every year (thanks, Blake Griffin!). more However, recently we threw in our lot with educator website DonorsChoose.org, which is an awesome tool for teachers scraping and scrounging to fund their classroom projects. The way it works is teachers post projects on the website, whether it be something small like an art project or something bigger like a new piece of technology like a computer or digital camera. Then, any ol’ philanthropist can browse the projects for something they think they’d like to support, and then they can donate as much (or as little) money towards it as they want. The donations are tax deductable, obviously, but more importantly it helps cash-strapped teachers fund cool projects they might never have been able to do otherwise. Kia last year launched the Double Your Impact campaign, in which they donated $1 million to match donations for DonorsChoose.org projects, leading to $2 million worth of teacher needs being met for over 125,000 American schools. Round Lake area Kia dealerships like ourselves love that we’re supporting the nation’s children, especially in a time when funding is harder and harder to come by for public institutions. The government might be cutting funding for schools, but citizens and Kia certainly don’t have to as well. In fact, we’re all more than happy to help.

In the most recent episode of NBC’s sleeper hit drama “Parenthood,” it was teased that one of the main characters would be entering a story arc in which she deals with the painful reality of breast cancer. It’s not something you see brought up on television often; “The Big Bang Theory,” “CSI,” and “Survivor” certainly don’t make much of the topic, and neither do many other of the top-rated shows on television today. But the fact that a network show is going this route proves that we as a country are not afraid to talk about breast cancer and are willing to go to great lengths to educate women about how to take care of themselves so that their families don’t have to lose a loved one to disease. We here at Classic Kia are hoping to do our own small part by supporting the efforts of our parent company’s HerHighway campaign, which features a fleet of Kia vehicles that will travel cross-country during the month of October (National Breast Cancer Awareness Month) spreading the word about how to prevent and combat the disease. The women driving the vehicles include breast cancer survivors, bloggers, journalists, and even women racecar drivers like Shea Holbrook and Ashley Van Dyke. It all just shows a national commitment to women’s health that we Round Lake Kia dealerships share, just on a smaller scale. This probably won’t get the same attention that the upcoming episodes of “Parenthood” will, but all awareness for breast cancer is good awareness, and we’re just happy to see our organization doing its part in all of that.

We told you last month that a new Kia Hamsters commercial was coming as the first line of attack in the promotion of the 2013 Kia Soul, but now that it’s actually here we’re actually kind of speechless at the results. Where do we start? Well, aside from the fact that the main characters of the spot are anthropomorphic rodents, this is a commercial that also includes a time machine, powdered wigs, crowd surfing, a laser light show, break-dancing, and of course the new ’13 Soul. But if all that is too ambiguous, we suppose it’d be less confusing to just start at the beginning. The commercial gets under way with patrons filing into an 18th Century opera house, presumably somewhere in Europe, where the community’s wealthy elite find their seats in preparation for what looks certain to be a riveting evening of operatic wailing. Halfway through the concert, however, the chunky conductor rips off his mask to reveal one of the Hamsters, as the Soul rises from underneath the floor to take center stage among the actors and singers. That’s when things go nuts. Other Hamsters in track suits come out of the woodworks and start popping-and-locking and jumping from private boxes into the hyped-up crowd. Lasers blast from every corner of the theater, turning the opera house into an 18th Century rave, and the Hamsters make their exit in the midst of the party via their time-traveling 2013 Kia Soul. Chicago area dealerships like ourselves could not possibly be more impressed by the overall vibe of the commercial, and we’re guessing our customers will feel the same way.