Here are some live shots of Kia’s sporty 3-door hatch, the Kia pro_cee’d, based on it’s new range of cee’d European cars. More photos after the jump, with enlarged versions thanks to contributor Ben Corley. For more details on the Kia pro_cee’d, refer here. Click here to read the rest of 2006 Paris Motor Show: Kia pro_cee’d
This is the third in the line of the new Kia cee’d based C-segment vehicles that Kia has in store for the European market. Following the 5-door hatch and the 3-door hatch variants, Kia will also introduce the 5-door Kia cee’d Sport Wagon at the 2006 Paris Motor Show later this month.
The Kia cee’d Sport Wagon is a station wagon that measures 4470 mm long, 1490 mm high, and has the same 650 mm wheelbase as it’s other two siblings, the Kia cee’d 5-door hatch and the Kia pro-cee’d sporty 3-door hatch.
Production is expected to start in mid-2007, and full sales across Europe is expected to begin in September 2007, following the 5-door hatch’s introduction in December 2006.
We’ve seen the Kia cee’d five-door hatchback, Kia’s C-segment competitor for the European market. Kia announced that soon after the 5-door hatch is launched, a station wagon version as well as a sporty 3-door version will be launched. This is the Kia pro_cee’d hatchback, to be shown at the Paris Motor Show later this month alongside it’s production 5-door cee’d brother.
The Kia pro_cee’d concept was developed by Kia’s team in Russelsheim under it’s design chief Gegory Guillaume. The concept comes in a colour Kia called Cashew - which is somewhat like a flat brown but with a small percentage of metal flakes to give it a little sparkle. The pro_cee’d has a roofline 25mm lower compared to the production 5-door cee’d, to give it a sportier image. Further enhancing it’s sporty image is the huge 19 inch wheels that fill up the wheel arches, wrapped with 265/30/R19 tyres.
More images after the jump. Click here to read the rest of Kia pro_cee’d Concept at Paris
Rumours through the grapevines indicated that Hyundai’s Kia unit might be the new owner of Ford’s struggling Jaguar brand, and perhaps even Land Rover. This might be bad news for Jaguar fans, you might see new Jaguar sedans based on the Kia Amanti or something. The Kia Amanti already looks very suspiciously like a Jaguar S-Type. And most of you know the Jaguar butt of the previous generation Hyundai Sonata.
Anyway, there were talks of this, but Hyundai has come out and informed media that yes there was an internal study done on the feasibility of acquiring a luxury marque like Jaguar from Ford Motor Co but it was ruled out because Hyundai decided it needed to focus on expanding production instead.
Unlike Jaguar, Ford’s other two luxury brands - Land Rover which makes luxury SUVs and Aston Martin which makes luxury sports cars - were profitable in 2005.
The Kia Sorento is available locally with a Naza badge as the Naza Sorento. The mid-sized SUV is based on a ladder frame as opposed to a monocoque chassis, so this should mean the body should be able to be modified easily. Kia does have light trucks (read: lorries!) like it’s K2700/3000/4000 series, but what about a pick-up truck?
Kia could easily develop a pick-up truck using the ladder frame chassis of the Kia Sorento. Kia has developed pick-up truck concepts before, like Kia KCV4 Mojave concept shown back in 2004 at the Chicago Motor Show. That was a mid-size truck, suitable for the US market but way too huge for our local tastes. The KCV4 Mojave Concept did not go into production, but was developed to gauge customer acceptance.
I think a Kia pick-up truck based on the Sorento could be feasible, especially with the Sorento’s 2.5 CRDi turbodiesel engine. To help us visualise how it could look like, Theophilus Chin comes to the rescue again with his impression of a double-cab pick-up track based on the Kia Sorento. Heh.
I posted about the Kia ED previously, which was also shown as the cee’d concept at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year. Kia has announced that the production car based on the same concepts will also be called the Kia cee’d, pronounced “seed”. The car will go on sale in the European market in December 2006 and will be Kia’s latest contender in the European C-segment.
The Kia cee’d was conceived in Europe, is made in Kia’s European Slovakia facility and will be sold exclusively in Europe. The “CE” in cee’d symbolizes the European community, while the “ED” indicates it is an European Design. cee’d, pronounced as seed, represents Kia’s seed for growth in European sales beginning from the introduction of this car.
More photos after the jump, and for more detials on the car check out the related posts.
Related Posts: Click here to read the rest of Kia cee’d to debut at the 2006 Paris Motor Show
Kia ED exclusively for Europe
Kia has unveiled it’s Kia ED, a future C-segment car for the European market. The ED is just a codename for now which stands for European Design as it’s targetted at the European market. The hatchback has a relatively long wheelbase, which will allow it to offer top notch interior space. The C-segment in Europe means small family car which include cars like the Ford Focus and the Honda Civic hatch. As a comparison, the Civic has a wheelbase of 2635mm while the Kia ED is longer at 2650mm.
Once it’s launched, it will offer the usual Kia range of engines, petrol engines in the 1.4, 1.6 and 2.0 range with CVVT variable valve timing as well as a new 1.6 liter turbodiesel equipped with variable geometry turbo. The Kia ED will go on sale in December this year exclusively in the European market. It will be offered first in 5-door hatch form, with station wagon and 3-door hatch versions to come in September and December 2007 respectively. Click here to read the rest of Kia ED exclusively for Europe
The 2006 Kia Rio/Rio5 clinched the top position for the US market J.D. Power and Associates 2006 Initial Quality Study SM (IQS) in the sub-compact category. The Rio/Rio5 tied together with the Suzuki Aerio for the top position of the survey which measures 217 vehicle attributes over 8 categories including driving experience, engine and transmission as well as QC problems reported by buyers. The Kia Rio/Rio5 scored 137 problems per 100 vehicles, the same as the Suzuki Aerio.
Other winners of the award include the Lexus LS430 in the large premium car category, the Toyota Corolla in the compact car category, the Lexus SC430 for premium sporty car, the Mazda MX-5 Miata for compact sporty car, the Toyota Solara for midsize sporty car, the Porsche Cayman for compact premium sporty car, the Toyota Camry for midsize car, the Lexus IS250/350 for entry premium car, the Pontiac Grand prix for large car and the Lexus ES330 for midsize premium car. Looks like Toyota and it’s luxury brand Lexus managed to clinch top position in 7 out of the 11 categories in the car segment. Click here to read the rest of Kia Rio tops US compact car J.D. Power IQS
Tomato Auto & Product Design, or Tomato ANP provides third party upgrades mostly for Korean vehicles like the Kia Sorento, Kia Sportage, Kia Cerato, Hyundai Coupé, Hyundai SantaFe, Hyundai Elantra, and SsangYong Musso. While boasting “I have a Tomato kit” doesn’t sound as cool as saying “I have a Brabus kit”, some of the designs are not too bad at all. It is popular these days to kit up SUVs for that bling factor like the tricked out Hummers in the states. If you own a Kia Sorento or Naza Sorento, you might want to look into Tomato ANP’s kit for the Sorento. I particularly like the exhaust tips integrated into the rear bumper. More photos after the jump.
I posted sketches and spyshots of the 2007 Kia Carens a few days ago. Many of you wondered how come the sketches looked so different from the actual camouflaged spyshots. Well, wonder no more. This is how the new 2007 Kia Carens will actually look like. Not really similiar to the really sporty sketches, but not too bad either. It has a slight SUV-ish profile to it, although it is a front-wheel drive strictly on road vehicle. Click here to read the rest of 2007 Kia Carens
