Reviewers yawned at the 2009 Kia Optima debut. Hoping its design would be more exciting than the last model, it continued to be bland and uninteresting.

As reported by John Neff:

The most exciting thing at Kia’s press conference today was undoubtedly the KOUP Concept, but sharing the stage and as an automotive wall flower was the redesigned 2009 Kia Optima. The last-gen Optima, not all that old itself, was derided by some for being blandly designed. Kia claims to have corrected this for ‘09, but dipped into the derivative styling bin to do it. Though all the sheetmetal is new, the ‘09 Optima still looks as interesting as white bread.

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