Kia pro_cee'd

First impressions

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Kia's on a mission to build its image in the UK and much, for the time being, hangs on the pro_cee'd. Apart from the silly name and punctuation, the pro_cee'd has dynamic and sporty styling, even though fundamentally it's a three-door version of the five-door hatch, albeit with almost every body panel changed. The only other company to do that is Vauxhall, which differentiates its three-door Astra with a much more aggressive, coupé-like body. Both this Astra and the pro_cee'd effectively give you something for nothing, the sense of buying into a coupé without the price premium this would normally involve. The pro_cee'd costs exactly the same as the five-door version, but gets additional equipment - 17-inch alloys and a sports trim pack in this level 3 model.
Performance

It may look sporting, the pro_cee'd is mechanically almost identical to the regular model, though with one important difference, which we'll come to shortly. That means the most powerful model is the 2.0 CRDi with 138bhp, though it's this 1.6-litre petrol model with 124bhp that is arguably more fun. That's because, if you choose to push on, there's a wide rev range and an eagerness to the engine at the upper end that makes it seem to be on your side of this driving adventure. Ultimately it's not that fast - 0-62mph takes 10.8 seconds, a long way off hot hatch pace - but it does well enough. There's a fair level of torque too, so you don't have to keep changing gear to keep the speed up.