Kia Cee'd: A family car with a personality problem
By Michael Booth
Published: 18 February 2007
Michael Booth tests the Kia
Would suit People who don't really believe they deserve a Golf.
Price £10,995-£14,245
Performance 107mph, 0-62mph in 13.8 seconds (as tested)
Combined fuel economy 60.1mpg
Further information 0800 775 777
With cars, as with life in general, the school playground can provide us with a useful psycho-social template. The car world has, for instance, its bullies (Hummer), bulimics (Lotus) and brainiacs (Audi). There is the class swot (Lexus), the snob (Mercedes), the dunce (Peugeot), the slut (Alfa), the head boy (Aston Martin), the fashion victim (Mini), and the closet homosexual (Hummer again). (I was a rare fashion victim/dunce hybrid, if you must know.)
And then there is the new Kia Cee'd. The Cee'd is the child who tries too hard to fit in, who, for fear of being singled out, remains on highly reactive alert to what everyone else is wearing, listening to, watching on TV and saying, mimicking their every move (the company started out by making a re-badged Mazda 121, for heaven's sake). In its meticulous efforts to conform - in this case, to being a member of the medium-sized family hatchback class - the child/ car sacrifices whatever individuality or personality it might have had to the tyranny of mediocrity.
Unless they are truly adept at doing this (and so wind up as an MP), the child will still come a cropper because, of course, his peers will eventually pinpoint this very desperation to conform as his particular weakness and stick his head in the toilet regardless. And this is where my already over-stretched motoring/schoolyard analogy pretty much falls to pieces because, of course, the Kia won't be bullied - cars don't get bullied, that would be silly - and in fact, with target sales of just 10,000 a year in the UK, it will, and deserves to, succeed.
Remove the badges and the Cee'd (pronounced "seed" and designed in Germany) could almost be a Toyota, and praise doesn't come higher than that in this sector. It is well proportioned and fashionably chiselled - better looking in fact than Toyota's new arrival in the market, its Corolla replacement, the Auris (boy, are they running low on new car names these days). The panel gaps are a little wayward, but I expect the Slovakian factory where they build the Cee'd will remedy that as production progresses. Inside, it is bland to the point of insolence, but better quality than some other Asian budget makes. The surfaces are padded; the grab handles damped; the seats are fine. All is adequate on the performance front from the 1.6-litre diesel I tried. It is a nice car to drive; there's nothing noticeably offensive about it. The only hint of a whisper of non-conformity from the Cee'd is that Kia has stuck the indicator on the right-hand stalk, which is actually a far better ergonomic solution than having it on the left as in most cars, because you can change gear and indicate at the same time.
But there is one area where the Cee'd towers over the opposition: a showroom sweetener that is causing paroxysms of terror among the rest of Europe's manufacturers. Every Cee'd sold comes with an unprecedented seven-year, 93,000-mile warranty - plus a 10-year anti-corrosion warranty.
If the progress of Honda and Toyota is anything to go by, Kia will be looking to muscle in on premium European territory within the next decade. One thing is certain, however: to do that it will have to do more than just skulk around the staffroom door hoping no one will laugh at its haircut or steal its dinner money.
It's a classic: Fiat 126
Back when the mass invasion of budget Asian brands was just beginning, and Europe's cash-strapped families had little to choose from, families of five would squeeze aboard things like this Fiat 126.
Designed to replace the iconic "tit on a rollerskate" 500, the 126 impressed 1972 Turin motorshow-goers with its spacious interior, trendy origami styling and, above all, price.
Unfortunately, the 126 was less impressive to drive, being noisy, slow and uncomfortable. Rust problems reared their head as soon as 126s began being sold north of the Alps, where rainier climates devoured their poor-quality metalwork.
But, even so, the 126 persevered for 15 years in Italy. Remarkably, a version was produced by the Polish FSM company until 2000 at which time, with EU membership looming, the Poles seemed to realise they couldn't get away with making them any more and didn't want to be a laughing stock like the Eastern Germans with their Trabants.
