Year of Kia Ceed

The Kia cee'd is a small family car released in the European market by the Korean manufacturer Kia Motors in December 2006. It is available as a five-door hatchback, three-door hatchback ("pro_cee'd"), and five-door estate ("cee'd SW"), with a choice of up to five engines (three petrol and two diesel), four trim levels (S, GS, LS, SR) and either manual or automatic transmissions — and is sold in over 20 variants of the above in some markets. Kia used the Paris Motor Show 2006 to preview a five-door estate variant in production form, and a three-door concept, both of which were to be on sale from Autumn 2007, combining with the five door hatchback model to give a model range of over 50 variants in some markets. The Hyundai i30 shares the platform with cee'd.

The car was designed in Frankfurt, Germany ("in Europe for Europeans") with Miklós Kovács leading the design team. Cars are manufactured in the Kia's factory in Teplička nad Váhom, Slovakia.

Cee´d is a great success in Europe and is the first Kia (and Korean car) which really could compete with the best cars in the Golf-category, not only because of the now famous seven year warranty. The car is very well accepted in the motor-press for it´s roomy interior, smooth engines, good standard equipment compared to price and feel of quality. The engines, especially diesels, are also fuel saving, an important advantage these days.

The Kia cee'd is said to get its name from the Community of Europe and European Design, its project name simply being "ED".

• Auto Express - New Car Honours - Special Honour for seven year warranty
• Autocar - 'Idea of the Year' for cee'd seven year warranty
• What Diesel Car?- Hatchback of the year
• Towcar awards 2007
• Camping Fritid(Danish Camping magazine, from DCU) - Camping car of the year 2007

• German auto magazine ACE Lenkrad, Kia Cee'd surpassed the Toyota Auris and the Volkswagen Golf.
• German auto magazine Autobild, Cee'd was rated higher than the Toyota Auris, Citroen C4 and Honda Civic.
• Austria auto magazine Autotouring (2007.4), Cee'd was rated above Toyota Auris, Volkswagen Golf, Mazda 3.
• Danish auto magazine Motor, Kia Cee'd is the first car to ever earn the 6 out of 6 rating.
• Swedish magazine Vi Bilägare found in the yearly long-distace test (one year, 40 000 km) that Kia Cee´d had the highest second hand value among all cars the magazine had tested through the years.

Kia cee'd earns Euro NCAP 5 star safety rating.

Kia's all-new Pro cee'd is the 3-door variant of the cee'd. The car debuted at the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show, and went on sale in January.