Reputations can be a great thing to base automobile success on, such as Corvette, Mustang, Jeep, Volvo, Alfa Romeo — and so forth. But reputations don’t always work.

When Honda introduced its upscale Acura line, its Japanese management types had trouble clearly saying “Acura” because of the difficulty in enunciating the “R.” Then they made a fancy version, and called it the “R.L.”

It definitely seems that come companies throw out a series of disjointed syllables, and declare them the name of the newest vehicle. I also know that so many names are copyrighted that it gets difficult to find one that works and is free of potential litigation.

The upsurging South Korean partners Hyundai and Kia have followed a similar path, and you can decide for yourself whether you are taken by names such as Sonata, Tucson, Santa Fe, Elantra and Kona for Hyundai.

On Kia’s side, I really liked the name Optima — which the company promptly changed to “K5” and lost all that marketability. The Soul, Carnival and Sportage and even Rio seem to work better, as does Telluride, Kia’s award-winning large SUV.

But then there’s the “Seltos.” That was not much of a car, to begin with, and seemed to be one of those collections of spare parts that could be made and sold at a bargain rate. Sort of like the Rio, without quite the same name-appeal.

So when I got word I was going to get a new 2024 KIA Seltos for a week-long test drive, I have to admit I sort of “Ho-hummed” it. I did notice, however, that after the name Seltos it said SX Turbo AWD, which was more intriguing.

When the car showed up, it was gleaming Snow White Pearl, particularly stunning in our amazingly mild winter with its tendency toward grey skies and fog more than blizzards. The white stood out, with ample black trim on the wheel wells and grille.

I am a huge fan of the Hyundai/Kia technology in hybrid vehicles, and I was disappointed that the Seltos was not a hybrid. It did have my favorite corporate 1.6-liter 4-cylinder turbo, however, and it was eager to take off swiftly with its matching 195 horsepower and 195 foot-pounds of torque.

With all-wheel drive and 8-speed automatic transmission, the Seltos bolted and maneuvered in a manner that further converted the idea of a dull subcompact SUV into a fun subcompact SUV.

Inside, the bucket seats were as welcoming as pulling on a comfortable but new Wilson baseball glove, if you’re into that sort of thing, and the color resembled one too, being sort of caramel. They also were as supportive as such a baseball glove might be after you’ve broken it in well. But aha, instead of leather they were Syn-Tex, which is a synthetic material that could fool me, and probably is close to bullet-proof.

I like the instrumentation, and I also like the gear shift, which was a simple lever jutting up out of the console and somehow missed the parts bin that nowadays might demand push-buttons or twirling rotations.

The rear seat also is firm and supportive, with the left side folding down as two-thirds and the right side the other third for hauling long objects.

We own a Kona, and we’ve driven and reviewed the 2024 revision of that Hyundai compact SUV, so we like light, agile, all-wheel-drive vehicles. We only wish our Kona had shift paddles and was a hybrid, which it isn’t.

The new Seltos is about the same size, on its taller and roomier platform, and it also lacks the shift paddles on the steering column, which I find are more than just helpful on the long, steep avenues of Duluth. With the hybrid, particularly, those paddles can focus the regenerative energy from the brakes back onto the battery pack and get you amazing fuel economy.

Not so bad, since the Seltos is not a hybrid, but its estimate fuel economy is only 25 miles per gallon city and 27 highway. We can get mid-30s in our five-year-old Kona, so I found that a bit disappointing, and we never got better than those EPA estimates.

The price was good, however, at a total of $33,085 for the loaded SX Turbo, and included options such as the SX sunroof package with power lift gate and the ventilated front buckets, plus the Snow White Pearl exterior and the interior seat color, called “Gentle Brown."

Its standard suite of features includes all those great driving-aid devices such as rear cross-traffic warning alerts, lane-variation alert and lane-keeping assist, plus an impressive d=feature that gives you LED extra-bright headlights, taillights and driving lights, and even the daytime running lights are LEDs — which I think all vehicles should make standard. The better for spotting that wayward deer with.

Kia kept the base price of the Seltos SX Turbo under $30,000 — at $29,990 to be exact — and includes on the SX larger 19-inch wheels and an impressive Bose Premium audio system.

The name? Well, Seltos is still Seltos, but I made great headway toward accepting it over my previous opinion of the name. And next time, I’ll be looking forward to driving a Seltos — particularly if its an AWD Hybrid with paddles.