AUSTIN, Texas — The handsome 2025 Cadillac CT5 is here and it’s a stunner. Signature teardrop front and rear taillights, wide stance, coupe-like roofline, twin, 33-inch hoodless instrument display. Ohhhh. Alas, most buyers can’t afford its $50K-plus sticker price.

Happily, the CT5 has a $23K doppelganger called the 2025 Kia K4.

Teardrop front and rear lights, wide stance, coupe-like roofline, twin, 30-inch hoodless instrument display. Ohhhh. This is a mainstream compact the valet can park at the curb next to the premium sedans. Indeed, as I emerged from the upscale Proper Hotel in downtown Austin where the city’s beautiful people congregate, my Kia GT-Line tester was out front in the valet line — parked back-to-back with a Cadillac CT5. K4 GT-Line OMG.

What’s more, the $27,245 GT-Line trim sported cool Morning Haze paint while the Caddy was dressed in, um, plain white.

That’s not the only Motown vibe the Kia shared with GM’s finest. Personal transportation is, well, personal, and the K4 offers (for a subscription price) a downloadable NBA basketball theme to fill the dash jumbotron. Kia is an official partner with the NBA, covering 30 cities across the USA.

One of those is Detroit — so make mine a Pistons theme, please. Blue and red team colors lit up the screen icons.

The icons match the athleticism of compact sedans compared to their SUV siblings. After weathering downtown Austin traffic (the Ann Arbor of Texas, this high-tech university town is growing fast ), I escaped west to the Texas twisties (good band name) and put my right foot down.

The smokin’ GT-Line offers a 190-horsepower, 1.6-liter turbo-4 option, but the standard 147-horse, 2.0-liter four banger was enough. Credit that, in part, to steering-mounted shift paddles married to a well-engineered continuously variable transmission. The CVT mimicked quick up/down shifts and the GT-Line’s planted steering and independent rear suspension did the rest. At just 2,932 pounds, the K4 go-kart is half the weight of the porky electric vehicles I tested all through 2024.

Much of that weight difference is in battery mass to help $50K EVs travel 300 miles on a single charge. Yet, the lightweight K4 has a gas range of 483 miles — 40% more than the typical electric costing 50% more. Range anxiety never crossed my mind as I wound out the engine and wound deeper into the Texas outback.

The compact segment has come alive and just in time for a market that is out-pricing consumers. Average transaction prices are a Caddy CT5-like $50K as manufacturers struggle to make margin with suffocating regulatory costs and money-sucking EV investments. Into this void has stepped a bushel of stylish subcompact SUVs like the Chevy Trax, Buick Envista, Nissan Kicks and VW Taos.

But boxy SUVs can’t strut a fashion runway like sedans. The Korean twins of Kia and Hyundai have brought upscale car designs to the segment to challenge perennial class leaders Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Subaru Impreza and VW Jetta. Ford (Focus), Chevy (Cavalier/Cobalt/Cruze) and Dodge (Neon/Dart) once played in this sandbox but have exited.

If the K4 looks like a Caddy, then the angular Hyundai Elantra looks like a compact and a Lamborghini had a baby. Hyundai has crafted a high-performance, corner-carving N variant as well, squaring off against the Honda Civic Si, Subaru WRX and VW Golf GTI/Jetta GLI.

Kia (so far) has demurred, choosing instead to expand the K4 sedan lineup with a hatchback scheduled to cross the border (the Kia is made in Mexico) in spring 2025. Alas for enthusiasts, the manual GT model from the previous-gen Forte is gone.

It’s an important moment for Kia’s sedan lineup as the brand reaches for a more premium vibe. Just as the Optima midsize sedan was replaced by the K5, K4 gains an alphanumeric badge to replace the compact Forte after 16 years of service in the North American market. Not sure why brands change names that customers have grown accustomed to (see the multi-decade success of the Civic badge even as it’s become more premium), and Forte consistently landed six-figure sales in this brutally competitive segment.

The sexy, non-alphanumeric Stinger hatchback (an Audi A7 at 60% the cost) introduced Kia’s more upscale era. K4 follows with its hip new look, and Kia asks a healthy 2 grand more than the outgoing Forte.

K4 follows in the footsteps — not just of the K5 and Stinger — but also the Telluride SUV, aka “Sell-uride” for how quickly it turns on dealer lots.

The three-row Telluride also took fashion cues (check out its vertical front and rear lights) from Cadillac while packing in value with standard items like best-in-industry 10-year/100,000-mile warranty, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot assist and forward collision warning. Then it piled on clever details like USB ports in the seatbacks and a third-row speaker so you can ask the kiddies what they want at the drive-thru.

K4 has its own delicious details in addition to standard goodies including the 100K warranty, ACC, remote app start and wireless Android Auto. Check out the high-handle rear door opener in the C-pillar. Or query POI in the navigation screen for local restaurants. Or talk to K4’s AI Assistant if you get lonely:

Why do they call it the bat bridge in Austin?

A voice responded with a detailed answer on the 1.5 million bats that live under the famed Congress Avenue Bridge. I could even ask follow-up questions:

What’s the weather forecast?

Not bad for a sub-$30K compact. Did I say compact? My knees breathed easy in the back seat with class-leading 38 inches of legroom. Which is the same as the midsize Caddy CT5. Why do we pay $50K for a luxury cars again? Oh, yes, power.

The Cadillac will deliver 237 horsepower from its standard turbo-4 for a horsepower-to-weight (pounds) ratio of 1:15.4. But if you option the K4 GT-Line’s 190-horse mill for a still sub-$30K sticker of $29,245, you get a power-to-weight ratio of 1:15.7.

I’m not making this up. Did I mention GT-Line’s available 360-degree camera and standard two-tone steering wheel with drive modes embedded in the steering wheel like the Caddy? K4 is luxury made affordable.

2025 Kia K4

Vehicle type: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive five-passenger sedan

Price: $23,145 including $1,155 destination fee ($28,345 GT-Line with Premium package and $31,445 GT-Line Turbo as tested)

Powerplant: 2.0-liter inline-4 cylinder; 1.6-liter turbo-4 cylinder

Power: 147 horsepower, 132 pound-feet of torque (2.0L); 190 horsepower, 195 pound-feet of torque (turbo)

Transmission: Continuously variable transmission (2.0L); eight-speed automatic turbo)

Performance: 0-60 mph, 7.3 seconds (Car and Driver, GT-Line Turbo); top speed, 124 mph (2.0L), 130 mph (Turbo)

Weight: 2,932-3,285 pounds

Fuel economy: EPA, 30 mpg city/40 highway/34 combined (2.0L); EPA, 30 mpg city/40 highway/34 combined (turbo)

Report card

Highs: Stylish, tech-tastic compact; roomy interior

Lows: $2K more than the outgoing Forte; manual performance model, please

Overall: 4 stars

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