SPACE WAGON(some text hidden)

By Jonathan Crouch

Ten Second Review word count: 55

There's a lot to like about the improved third generation Kia Ceed, but those looking for more of the good stuff will be attracted to the Sportswagon estate model. Offering 625-litres of luggage room with the rear seats upright, it's got space aplenty. Plus there's smarter looks, extra technology and stronger standards of safety equipment.

Background word count: 130

The discipline of turning a family hatchback into a modest estate car doesn't seem, on the face of it, to be too taxing an assignment but look back at some of the designs we've been offered down the years and there have been some proper horror scenes, vehicles that look like normal hatches being mounted by an amorous propagator. Examples include the weirdly broken-backed Citroen BX estate and the unhappy looking Fiat Croma estate. There's none of that here. Indeed, the Ceed Sportswagon has turned out to be quite an elegant thing. In 2018, Kia re-designed this MK3 'CD'-series model with a more athletic look and added more efficient engines and extra technology. Then enhanced the whole package three years on, creating the car we're going to look at here.

Driving Experience word count: 241

The Ceed Sportswagon is a vehicle that builds on the hatchback's reputation for exceeding customer expectations. It's a Kia, so you might reasonably expect a few corners to be cut under the surface to make it that little bit more affordable, but check out the sophisticated multi link rear suspension and there's little sign of cost saving. The ride has been developed on Europe's wide variety of road surfaces, remaining comfortable while giving drivers the confidence of tighter body control under cornering and stability at higher speeds. Some of this tuning happened in the UK to ensure this Ceed performs well on our unique roads. The brand has slimmed down the Ceed powerplant range in recent times to the unit that it's found most customers want, a 158bhp four cylinder 1.5-litre T-GDi powerplant mated to 6-speed manual transmission. In terms of handling updates for this facelifted third-generation model though, Kia's largely left the set-up alone, which is fine by us, as that was one of this model's strongest aspects. The Ceed is built on a stiff 'K2'-series platform and garnished with feelsome power steering aided by a torque vectoring system that helps to get the power down through the bends. The result is a car we think you'll genuinely enjoy driving. Plus this is still one of the most refined cars in its class, something helped by the emphasis the Korean brand has put on reducing vibration from its latest engines.