Kia is nothing if not realistic about its customer profile and typical buyer perception of the marque. The company knows it isn't perceived to be on the same level as Ford and Vauxhall, let alone Honda and Volkswagen. Therefore, you'll probably come at the Kia c'eed with a few preconceptions. You'll know that the Koreans have come a long way in a short space of time and you might wonder whether the c'eed has the chops to knock over some of the older models from, say, Skoda, Peugeot and SEAT.

The reality is a shock. From the moment the doors thunk shut to the dawning that some of the interior finishes are class-leading, the c'eed has the capacity to surprise. Even this base-spec 1.4-litre S carries the right stuff in its DNA. It's not flashy. It won't be the darling of the style set but it's a whole lot more car than you could imagine at this price point.

It's fair to say the 1.4-litre engine is probably the least impressive aspect of this car. I don't normally open a road test by recommending another model but for a paltry £500 extra, you could get an equivalent 1.6-litre petrol variant with another 17bhp and another 17Nm of torque that makes it usefully more relaxed at motorway cruising speeds. Still, the 1.4-litre model has a bit more go than you might imagine given the c'eed's size.

It'll get to 60mph in 11.3 seconds and reach a top speed of 116mph, so it's no slug but you need to rev it quite hard and it can get a touch thrashy as a result. Its peak torque of 137Nm is reached at 5,000rpm whereas the 1.6-litre unit reaches its 154Nm max at 4,200rpm, which makes quite a difference in the amount of pedalling you need to do to keep the cee'd up with fast flowing traffic.

The steering lacks a little of the polish of some of the very best contenders, although we're talking about tiny percentage differences. There's certainly very little in it when it comes to ride quality, the Kia adopting much the same MacPherson strut front suspension as the best of its rivals and a clever independent set-up at the rear. The cee'd corners well with well-suppressed lateral roll and even when provoked, steadfastly refuses to do anything unexpected. The long wheelbase helps ride quality with only lumpy B-roads showing up any flaws in deportment.

"If your budget is limited to £12,000, it's hard to think of a better destination for your money"

Think of even the better-looking South-East Asian cars and there will be some jarring detail you'll be able to nominate fairly easily. With the cee'd, Kia has aimed for a more mature design. Not mature as in the demographic of the target market. Rather the design output of a company that doesn't need to fall back on gimmickry and ostentation to get noticed.

Sit inside the cee'd and you'll wonder whether they might be on the way to achieving it. Designer Peter Schreyer and his team benchmarked the best European cars in order to give Kia something substantive to aim at and when it came to interiors, he was able to share a little of what he knew of his ex-employers' best practice (the ex-employer being Volkswagen). Quality fabrics, doors that 'thunk' shut and thoughtful approach to design make the cee'd a landmark Korean car. There are still some improvements that need to be made. The plastics quality is still a little hit and miss and the orange dash lighting isn't overly easy on the eye but let's not be patronising and proclaim the car as 'a lot of metal for your money' or any other such bunk. This Kia is a good car, full stop.

When put up against the likes of the Ford Focus and the Vauxhall Astra, the cee'd needs to be extravagantly talented to even have a sniff of getting near Kia's modest target of two percent of total segment sales which, in real terms, equates to about 10,000 cars per year. Three-door and estate models will help those figures but it's still a stretching aspiration.

Pricing that starts at just £11,095 for the 1.4-litre S is obviously going to help, and the GS model only weighs in at £11,895. How does that compare to a baseline model we all recognise? Well, it's around £1,000 less per model than something like a Focus.

Equipment levels are noteworthy, the entry-level car getting air-conditioning, an MP3-compatible CD stereo, front seats with height and lumbar adjustment to complement a rake and reach adjustable steering column, electric front windows and six airbags. Highlights of the GS model include 16-inch alloys, heated and electrically-adjustable door mirrors, remote central locking and a stereo with USB and auxiliary inputs. It's a decent showing.

Where the 1.4-litre engine excels is at the pumps. It'll return an average of 46.3mpg which is notably better than 1.4-litre versions of the Ford Focus, Peugeot 307, Renault Megane or Vauxhall Astra. The continuously-variable valve timing helps efficiency and also means that the engine is good on emissions, something that hasn't always been the case with South-East Asian powerplants. At just 145g/km, the cee'd is again miles better than, say, a Megane 1.4 which emits 165g/km.

Used values will doubtless be propped up quite nicely by Kia's excellent warranty arrangement. Buyers get full cover for seven-years or 100,000 miles. It's about as good as the industry can offer and puts mainstream rivals like Ford and Vauxhall in the shade. This promise of trouble free motoring will be enough to tip the balance for many potential customers.

Although the 1.4-litre engine returns some impressive figures, it's the Achilles heel in the make up of this model, being rather vocal and lacking the sort of lugging power you'd want. A better option is the only slightly more expensive 1.6-litre car that offers a more relaxed steer. Other than that, the cee'd gets a very favourable report card. It looks good, it's decently finished, it's very affordable and, best of all, it doesn't look like something from the automotive world's bargain bin.

If your budget is limited to £12,000, it's hard to think of a better destination for your money. The cee'd feels as if it's built for the long term and recent customer satisfaction surveys have shown that owners aren't needing to tax Kia's industry-leading warranty scheme too heavily. Shopping for a bargain usually means putting in the footwork and making a few compromises. Kia shows it doesn't always need to be so.

TOP 2 CEED DEALS

The results below show the top CEED deals on buyacar

	Kia Ceed 1.4 GS 5dr Hatchback
	ETR	Mthly £196	Saving £1,884	Price £10,181
	Kia Ceed 1.4 S 5dr Hatchback
	ETR	Mthly £180	Saving £1,878	Price £9,387

typical 13.11% APR

PCP finance quote over 48 months,  10,000 miles pa,  deposit of £1000