Kia Proceeds Further With Another Cee’d

8 months ago 09th Feb 12:37

Kia Pro-Cee'd What, another cee’d! But this new pro_cee’d fills a hole in the Kia clan as this car is a three door very sporty looking number thus will appeal to such customers who have, to date, dismissed the Kia brand as unsuitable for their needs. For this three door hatchback, that is the only three door in Europe (as it is being manufactured at Zilina in Slovakia) to come with Kia’s unprecedented seven year, 100,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty as seen on the pro_cee’d s siblings, has stunning looks and severe road presence that will surely appeal to young couples craving street cred as well as older couples whose children may have flown the nest and they regress back to the type of cars they had to forsake to accommodate the children.

You see, what the giant Korean designers have done that many other manufacturers do not, when producing a three door variant, is to share component structures and panels instead of simply swapping the doors over. They have also increased the overall length by 15 mm compared to the cee’d, reduced the height by 30 mm resulting in a low elongated coupe-like stance further cemented by the 245 mm longer side doors and of course the compulsory sporty rooftop spoiler. Add on the eye catching solid colours of either red, white or blue along with the standard 16 inch alloy wheels - 17 on both pro_cee’d 3 plus Sport, and this car will surely send its main rivals like the Vauxhall Astra, VW Golf and possibly the Peugeot 307 scuttling back to the drawing board.

This pro_cee’d is the first truly sporty model Kia have produced and increases their coverage of the total C-segment to a staggering 95%. Kia are estimating that the pro_cee’d will take 18% of total cee’d sales. I personally feel this percentage will be much higher. It’s an ambitious project on Kia’s behalf but of course the ace up their sleeve, as ever, is their value for money without compromising on style, quality, standard equipment, outstanding fuel consumption, all on a liberal price tag to start with.

UK customers can choose between three trims, a 1.6 litre petrol, or two 1.6 litre diesels all on a five speed manual gearbox but for the Sport trim, Kia’s strong torquey 2.0 litre common-rail turbodiesel engine mated to a six speed manual gearbox. A four speed automatic gearbox is available as an option on the 1.6 litre petrol engine while the 1.4 litre petrol will join its brothers later this year.

Sport boasts full leather trim, privacy glass, electric folding mirrors with blue tinted glass of the drivers side, follow me home headlamps and ESP with EBD

Despite being a three -door, accessing the pro_cee’d proved no problems even for my larger than life co-driver thanks to the larger sized doors with wide openings. Height adjustable drivers seat and leather height adjustable steering wheel with remote audio controls is standard across the range so finding the optimum driving position equally proved no problems. There is plenty of head, leg and elbow room for the front occupants without getting too intimate and even the rear, despite the lower roofline, can accommodate two adults albeit under six-foot. The luggage area sees a reasonable 340 litres of space meaning enough for the tennis gear with 80 kg of roof load capacity so sadly the surfboard will have to stay at home.

Aiding and abetting the driver is air conditioning with a cooled glove box, a fully integrated six speaker RDS radio CD player with MP3 and iPod compatibility that was great in drowning out the noise of the continuous toots from horns as we navigated our way carefully around Istanbul. The pro_cee’d 3 gains climate control, cruise control, while pro_cee’d Sport boasts full leather trim, privacy glass, electric folding mirrors with blue tinted glass of the drivers side, follow me home headlamps and ESP with EBD.

Istanbul was chosen for the UK launch epitomising old for new, East meets West, and we started off in the 1.6 litre 16- valve twin cam petrol engine specially developed for the cee’d family. Featuring performance-enhancing continuously variable valve timing and multi point fuel injection it was pretty impressive off the mark, which was an essential ingredient driving in Istanbul. I felt rather re-assured this car will get me out of trouble if needed and started to embrace the ride and handling that turned out to be exquisite thanks to the comparative rarity in the C-segment of fully independent suspension all round. The five-speed gearbox did the job, while the electronic power steering guided me in an out of the tiniest gaps with ease. But then I was safe in the knowledge of the powerful all-disc brakes that produced some blinding emergency stops so needed as another Turkish driver attempted to cut me up.

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