An all-new Kia Cee'd will debut at Geneva.
Few manufacturers have done a more dramatic about-face in the styling studio than Kia. Long disdained for its boring, lack-luster designs it is now a dramatic trend-setter, as witness the kudos generated for the latest version of the Korean carmaker’s midsize Optima.
Credit goes, to the large degree, to Peter Schreyer, the former Audi penman who joined Kia a few years back and has aggressively transformed its look. And as witness to that new direction just consider this shot of the next-generation Kia Cee’d, the C-segment hatchback the maker will be updating this year, with its launch scheduled for the upcoming Geneva Motor Show.
The new look “immediately gets your attention,” suggests a Kia release accompanying this teaser shot, adding that the “new Kia Cee’d combines styling typically found on a sporty coupé with the space and functionality of a five-door hatch.”
Until Geneva – or, at least, until the maker offers up some interior shots, we’ll have to settle for Kia’s word that the interior features a “driver oriented dashboard” with “a strong focus on quality of materials.”
Currently offered with a mix of five powertrains, our friends at Autoblog suggest the new Kia Cee’d will pare that down to two diesels and two gasoline engines – though “that would include a turbocharged, 1.6-liter T-GDI making 250 horsepower, more than doubling the most powerful current option.”
For the moment, don’t expect to see the Cee’d in the U.S., though that could change if the small American hatchback market continued to grow. Europeans will start seeing the new 5-door reach showrooms by sometime in the second quarter of this year.