Now this is a well built Kia. In fact, it's surprising just how well built it actually is. When the Ed handed me the keys and dispatched me to our car park to take the pro_cee'd home, starting our week-long serenade together, I expected the usual Korean recipe: dull, limited driver feedback, a couple of rattles and an overall plastic feel.
But really, hand on my heart (or light burning, as the cuzzins would say), the pro_cee'd ( launched in SA in October 2008) feels almost like the Japanese or Germans had a hand in the broth.
So I checked the media kit before starting this story in the hope that some revelations would be found and - lo and behold - I found that styling of the pro_cee'd was by a Kia design team in Germany (assisted by the Koreans) and the pro_cee'd is in fact built in Slovakia. So hats off to the Koreans for getting a bit global with their outlook. It can be seen in the final product.
Internationally the pro_cee'd is the third member of Kia's cee'd family, joining the five-door and station wagon ranges (neither available yet locally).
It's quite a celebrated model range and Kia says the cee'd is the most successful Korean model yet and has won eight international Car of the Year style awards - although to be fair there's a bit of Toyota in the grille and headlight section and I swear the designers were thinking of a brand with four rings when designing the rear.
And the designers made sure we'd never forget the name. You see, the cee'd range stands for "Community of Europe, and European Design". The "pro" indicates that it's a hatch model.
Locally you have the option of a standard model and the Sport version reviewed here (and also seen at the Johannesburg auto show a few weeks ago). Inside it has goodies such as a leather steering wheel, gear knob and handbrake and metal finishes scattered here and there.
There's also sporty stitching on the leather seats and steering wheel, the pedals are alloy, and the door sill gets a shiny stainless plate.
Outside the Sport scores 17" alloys, low profile Michelin rubber and a rear spoiler. The package includes cruise control, fancier audio with iPod connectivity, rear parking sensors (but no front ones), tyre-pressure monitoring and rain sensing wipers.
All at an extra cost of around R35 000 over the standard model. I know, I also gasped when I worked out the price difference.
Practicality-wise this Kia gets the nod. The 60/40-split rear seats fold completely flat without removing the head restraints, and there's 1210 litres of lugging room when they're down.
There's also a concealed storage tray under the boot floor with 55 litres of hiding space; it seems these storage areas are becoming more popular among manufacturers.
MANUAL ADJUSTMENT
Accessing the rear seats of this three-door model is via a handle on the top of the front seats, which slides the seat forward but irritatingly doesn't slide it back to the original position.
The driver has to adjust his or her legroom manually every time somebody gets in or out of the rear. Legroom is OK, though, and the few adults I carted around recorded no complaints.
The two-litre DOHC engine with continuously variable valve timing will hardly set your hair on fire and to be honest felt a little sluggish at altitude. It works better if you keep it on the boil, but it's not pleasant to drive that way.
It's more of a cruiser and does well on open roads but it's no robot racer by any stretch of the imagination. The car gets more of a nod on the handling front; a little more power would have rounded the package off nicely.
On the safety side the pro_cee'd boasts a maximum five-star Euro NCAP safety rating but the traction control got grumpy once on our test unit and refused to deactivate, even after switching the car off and restarting.
VERDICT
I've saved the worst for last, because it's big enough to act as the overall verdict: a R249 995 price tag. As good as the pro_cee'd is, it's a difficult sell when premium hatchbacks such as the Audi A3 and BMW 1 Series go for similar money.
I predict Kia will find the basic R214 995 pro_cee'd far easier to move out of showrooms.