By Conor Twomey

Whenever someone asks me my thoughts on buying a new Kia, I usually find it rather difficult to respond. On the one hand, it's tough to argue with the value for money Kias offer, not to mention the exemplary warranty package and excellent reliability. On the other hand, the vehicles themselves tend to be rather soulless and uninspiring - functional transport with very little to get excited about in terms of style or engineering. Like Toyotas used to be, before Lexus reverse-engineered a little spirit into them.

While there's always a market for cheap transport, Kia is now eyeballing the broader, automotive mainstream. Kia's European market share is currently 1.5 percent, putting it ahead of the likes of premium brands like Lexus, Land Rover, Jaguar, Saab, and Alfa Romeo, as well as smart, Chrysler, Chevrolet (previously Daewoo), and Mitsubishi. But sales dropped 8.5 percent last year compared to 2005, and that despite offering a huge range of nine different models to European buyers.

So the Korean company has decided to follow the lead of other carmakers like Toyota and Nissan and has begun designing and building cars in Europe, specifically for the European market. Its first attempt, the ridiculously named cee'd (yes, spelled with a small "c" and an apostrophe but then pronounced simply "seed") is hitting European forecourts about now and it's creating a bit of a buzz. Not only does it boast Europe's best warranty by a country mile (seven years or 160,000 km) - it also happens to be pretty good.

Looks great

For a start, it looks great. Compared to the rest of the Kia range, it's taut, clean, well proportioned, and beautifully detailed. There's just enough bulging and sculpting going on to make it appealing, but not so much that it becomes overwrought and busy. It sits happily on its standard 16-inch wheels and looks well in almost any color and is, arguably, more attractive than most of its compact rivals, including the VW Golf and new Toyota Auris. Kia should seriously consider moving all their designers to Europe so that we can enjoy more cars like the cee'd and fewer like the retina-warping Opirus sedan (in America, the Amanti).

The cee'd also represents a major leap forward for the Korean brand in terms of interior execution. Compared to the achingly bland cockpits found in the rest of the range, the cee'd has a surprisingly modern and uncluttered cabin layout. There's a feeling of space and roominess you don't get in the dark cabins of many of its rivals. The buttons are big, bold, easy to find, and robust in use. The steering is the perfect size and thickness, with stereo controls neatly integrated. The plastics are (mostly) high quality and are soft and pleasant to the touch, and even the seats feel Germanic - deep, solid, and seriously comfortable.

It looks and feels almost like a Ford or Opel cabin, except screwed together more solidly. The only letdown is the cheap, shiny plastic they used around the interior door handles and electric window switches. Apart from the steering wheel and gear lever, this is the part of the cabin people will spend the most time touching - why drop the ball so close to the line?

Still, that minor indiscretion is easy to forgive when you take a look at the equipment levels offered. European compacts, or small family cars as we prefer to call them, are generally rather well specified, especially in terms of safety and luxury equipment. Even by Euro-standards, the cee'd is pretty impressive, offering air conditioning with a cooled glovebox; four one-touch electric windows; heated electric mirrors; an MP3 CD player; a USB port and an auxiliary audio input port; front, side, and curtain airbags and four-wheel disc brakes (German models add stability control while anti-lock brakes are standard on all European cars now).

A leather steering wheel, 16-inch alloy wheels, parking sensors, self-dimming mirrors, a sunroof, satellite navigation, and leather seats are all offered (optional or standard, depending on the individual markets) and all this for a pre-tax base price of just $15,500 - a bargain by European standards. MORE--