Kia Ceed 1.6 S (2006) CAR review

What's this: a Korean Focus rival with a grammar-busting name?

Absolutely. This is the car Kia calls the Cee'd, with a rogue apostrophe to make punctuation pedant Lynne Truss – and us – blow a fuse. At CAR Online, this car shall be known as the Ceed. It’s a five-door hatch that’s Ford-sized, offers air con as standard, and is to be priced from £11k. This is the first Kia to be designed AND built in Europe, and comes with intent. Kia and parent Hyundai are hungry for European market share, at the mainstream players’ expense. It’s grown so far by undercutting them; now it wants to use value as an added bonus, not a proviso. The Ceed has to feel like a Focus contemporary. The Ceed is not only very focused, it's also offered with a mighty SEVEN-year warranty, valid for 100,000 miles. This is the best in Europe (literally so in the UK: it’s 150,000km elsewhere – 93k miles) and is very much an excuse in itself to buy it. Quite apart from the security, it proves how confident Kia is of the Ceed’s reliability.

Will it sow the Ceeds of love among Europeans...

There’s plenty to like. Inoffensive styling is packed with cues ripped off from others (Corolla nose, Mazda3 C-pillars, and so on) but strong shoulders and squat haunches give it an assured stance, and both panel gaps and paint finish say ‘quality’. For now it’s five-door only, with a three-door (probably packing a 2.0-litre turbo) and estate arriving later in ’07. And interestingly, during the press presentation, sketches of an open-top Ceed were spotted on the wall behind the designer…