Kia Clarifies Mesa’s U.S. Competitors

Through its official blog (Kia Buzz), Kia informed us today that there was some sort of a translation mix-up in a series of English reports from Korean media referring to the 2008 HM’s U.S. competitors. We discovered on of those articles in The Korea Times and it stated that the production version of the Mesa Concept is aimed at competing with Toyota’s Lexus RX350, BMW’s X5 and Mercedes Benz’s M-Class models in the United States. Wrong; according to Kia, the Mesa (codenamed HM) will compete against the Ford Explorer, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Chevrolet Trailblazer, Toyota 4Runner and Nissan Pathfinder. -Continued after the jump

Moreover, Kia clarifies that the ongoing HM naming survey –there are three candidate names: Mohave, Windriver and Opelia, is only for the Korean market vehicle and not for the export model. Too bad, journos would have had a gassy blast if you picked out Windriver. However, Mohave does have a nice ring to it.

Link: Kia Buzz , Korea Times