"Where are the other ones?!" This frequent refrain from our judges cut to the core of why the all-new Kia Carnival wasn't a 2022 Car of the Year finalist. Blame our organizing committee: The only version we requested was a loaded, top-shelf SX Prestige model with unremovable-but fabulous-VIP second-row lounge seats. Thus, our judges had to determine its fate using only a version that doesn't "minivan" as well as others might. And those VIP seats had technical director Frank Markus-a minivan packaging engineer in a previous life-in a tizzy. "Because I've only ever seen these ridiculous limousine versions of the Carnival where access to the third row is nigh impossible, it scores a zero for engineering excellence, and that disqualifies it from consideration in my book," he said. Hot fire, that. Other judges were more even-keeled. "Third-row access is OK," features editor Christian Seabaugh countered. Executive editor Mac Morrison climbed aboard, scrambled through the narrow second-row opening into the far back, and held up his hands to say, "Not terribly difficult." Third-row ingress is a problem if you use your glitzy minivan as an empty nesters' taxi for, say, dinner parties and expect adults to regularly clamber between the middle chairs. If you're hauling kids (or Morrison), as some judges pointed out, they'll crawl over, under, or around anything with nary a complaint. The VIP seats do slide fore and aft and side to side, but lower trims offer more flexible-and removable-captain's chairs or a bench.
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