Hyundai Motor Group’s two carmakers Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. announced Wednesday that two of their vehicles were selected as “Best Cars for Families 2011” by the U.S.-based business magazine Kiplinger.

According to the two Korean carmakers, the magazine selects vehicles included in the IIHS’ Top Safety Pick and rates them on a range of categories including performance, customer satisfaction, safety features and load capacity to select the best family cars.

In this year’s list, the Hyundai Sonata midsized sedan was selected as the best car for families in its segment, while the Kia Sorento R midsized sport utility vehicle came out on top in its segment.

With two vehicles included in the list, Hyundai Motor Group tied with Ford Motor Co. in terms of the number of vehicles in Kiplinger’s list.

The two Ford vehicles in the list are the Flex and Fusion.

The other six vehicles are Volkswagen Jetta, sports wagon TDI, Subaru Outback, Toyota Highlander, Honda Odyssey and Chevrolet Trebus.

“The results show that Hyundai and Kia’s vehicles are meeting the needs of consumers who value safety, design and quality,” Hyundai Motor Group said in a statement.

“It is also a result of recent rise in our brand recognition, achieved by the companies’ emphasis on quality.”

In addition to the latest list, Hyundai’s Avante compact car and the Sonata, and Kia’s K5 midsized sedan and the Sportage compact sport utility vehicle were included in Kiplinger’s best new cars of 2011 list published in February.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)