Kia sounds off at SEMA show with five loud Souls

James Brown may have passed on, but the Soul puns live. Kia's SEMA show assault this year includes five examples of the 2014 Soul, designed through collaborations with Vans, Popular Mechanics, RIDES (two of them), and NBC's "The Voice." There's a mobile DJ booth. One filled with stuff from Jimi Hendrix and John Legend. One that enables the worst of in-car singing. And all of them are stuffed with speakers.

Come on, feel the noise.

Kia
Are you sufficiently AMPED?! This Soul is.

Popular Mechanics helped stuff this Kia Soul with JBL speakers, presumably imparting a level of authority not easily found through Best Buy Mobile Installation employees who smoke entirely too many Newports. Stuffed? That's about right, seeing as everything that garnered the Soul the "Grooviest Interior" award from Ward's has been ripped out and turned into fat stacks.

This Soul has 22-inch Forgiato three-piece wheels, in tasteful gold, perched above some more speakers. Groovy, indeed.

Kia
In the car world, one has to think about things like visibility, safety, etc. In the music world, who cares.

The Vans Warped Tour is an event that represents many things: a youthful spirit, a musical journey, a need to buy sneakers. What it does not represent is side visibility, a fact made evident by the above Soul that forgoes NHTSA compliance with two 8-inch Infinity speakers per window.

There's a cool hood ornament up front, and also a grill in the back. Which makes sense. Because, and how do we put this delicately, the general demographic at a Warped Tour tour prefers the same dining habits that inspired Jack in the Box to introduce its "Munchie Meal."

Kia
Rumor has it that this was the car Skrillex drove to get his learner's permit.

Three-spoke wheels are back, baby. This roofless, purple DJ Booth Soul wears the 19-inch Rotiform BRU three-spokes as ironic-chic, with the same hopeful anticipation as the theory that someday, fanny packs will also come back in style. The aspiring Tiesto can stand in the back, on a diamond-plated stage (in lieu of the back seats), and spin on two Pioneer mixers up top.

Five amplifiers, three component speakers, two 10-inch and two 12-inch Champion Series subwoofers, and a sound bar housing four coaxial speakers ensure that any K-Mart parking lot can instantly be transformed into the nearest Club Rehab.

Kia
Not shown: the ethereal ghost of a James Marshall Hendrix.

This Soul has easily the coolest wheel style ever made: the solid "turbo-look" wheel, once made popular by BMW's M5 and '80s Corvettes galore, kept thriving by Ronal. (Here, they're HRE 935s, from the company's Vintage series.) Super cool. Super retro. Super pricey.

You know what else is cool, retro and pricey? Slash's guitar and a Jimi Hendrix gold album, which reside in molded Plexiglass holds within this Soul. John Legend signed a microphone that is recessed in the rear window area. Gold and "platinum silver" mark the color palette -- gold and platinum records, get it? It's a mobile Capitol Records building.

Kia
The chairs from The Voice are replicated inside.

The Voice Soul has the logo of "The Voice" on the side, preventing any confusion with other reality shows like, say, "Duck Dynasty." "I Want You" is illuminated on the front bumper, a life-affirming bumper that really should end with the words "...to stop doing 70 and move out of the left lane, you idiot."

A 40-inch TV, a wireless microphone, and an iPad with "The Voice" app lets aspiring Taylor Hickses sing in the back, while Rockford Fosgate speakers allow them to hear their voicework.

SEMA -- short for Specialty Equipment Marketing Association -- is the biggest aftermarket auto event in the world, held in Las Vegas each fall. The show fills multiple convention halls and shows off everything from high-performance OEM specials to custom wheels and graphics from local shops. Get the full rundown on what automakers and suppliers are up to at the industry's biggest trade show at our SEMA Show home page.

By Blake Z. Rong