• MSNBC, Friday, September 3, 2010 10:40 AM

If you've thought of Kia at all, you've probably associated it with the cheap-and-cheerful products that dominated the Korean carmaker's lineup after it introduced its own U.S. dealer network in 1994, writes Paul A. Eisenstein. Company executives are out to change that perception, and the 2011 version of its midsize sedan is a good starting point.

Peter Schreyer, Kia's new styling chief and the former design director at Audi AG, compares the design of the new Optima to "a well-tailored Italian suit." Critics like it, too, as do buyers. Sales for the brand are up 16.3% for the year, but the real measure of success, according to U.S. sales chief Tom Loveless, is "profitable retail market share growth." It's well ahead of almost anyone else in the industry in that category, Eisenstein reports, except for Subaru.

Still, Loveless knows the bar is high and the charge is uphill as the automaker tries to imprint its name on the average American's consciousness. Admits he: "We suffer from no perception, rather than a negative perception" among the new customers Kia hopes to reach.

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