Two hundred Carnivals were sold around Australia in November, after 153 sales in its debut month of October, so it has obviously hit it off with Australian families.

According to the official industry VFACTS figures, Carnival outsold the traditional market leader, ToyotaTarago, by eight units. The next highest seller was Mazda’s MPV with 90 sales. There were 78 Honda Odysseys sold, 74 Chysler Voyagers, and Mitsubishi Nimbus recorded 43 sales.

"This is all a bit new to us," said the general manager of Kia Motors Australia, David Hughes.

"I’ve often read about car company executives popping champagne corks in situations like this. But the best I could find in our fridge was a can of light beer left by staff working overtime on Melbourne Cup day, so I had half and our marketing assistant had the other half.

"The success of Carnival isn’t rocket science. Australian car buyers respond to honest value and we’re simply offering them all the space and equipment of the competition, at around $15,000 less."

It was another month of growth for Kia, with 711 sales overall. Its high-value Mentor sedan and hatch recorded 243 sales, responding to the ‘Y2K, Yes to Kia’ $1000 cash-back offer, while the Sportage 4WD achieved sales of 200 units assisted by the value-for-money, limited edition FX package.