It might take the car buying public a while to get their heads around this one but Kia has hauled itself out of the bargain basement. The Malaysian firm has shown us with its cee'd family hatchback that it now has a whole lot more to offer than low prices and lots of equipment. The cee'd has real quality but while everyone struggles to come to terms with the idea, the nice people at Kia have thoughtfully provided us with the SR special edition. It's a cee'd with lots of equipment and a low price.

In the past, Kia has thrived on a refreshingly straightforward business plan. The marque offered good products that out-gunned their mainstream equivalents with big standard specifications while undercutting them significantly on price. The cee'd signalled a new breed of Kia products that can compete with the big boys on a level playing field. It's polished driving experience, upmarket interior and robust build quality stands comparison with the best in the family hatch sector. What makes the SR model so interesting, is that it takes these impressive attributes and packages them up with the old Kia favourites - an equipment list as long as your arm and a piffling price tag.

OK, so you'll need £10,495 for the SR with a 1.4-litre engine but remember that this is a top-line family hatch. You can't get into a Ford Focus or Vauxhall Astra for that kind of cash and the cee'd SR conspicuously lacks the telltale look and feel of a stripped-down, entry-level product. It gives buyers 16" alloy wheels to raise the game of the neatly styled exterior and inside, there's a lot more than you'd expect in a sub £11,000 car. Air-conditioning, a six-speaker CD stereo with MP3 compatibility, electric front windows, central locking and six airbags are all included. The highlight though, could well be Kia's monster seven-year warranty.

".the cee'd SR conspicuously lacks the telltale look and feel of a stripped-down, entry-level product"

SR customers get a choice of either the 108bhp 14-litre unit or a 120bhp 1.6-litre that presents the further option of a four-speed automatic gearbox. Neither of the engines make the cee'd what you'd call quick but the 1.6-litre is a proficient all-rounder and the 1.4 does a good job of keeping costs down. The 1.6-litre is a little harsh when extended but in normal use is adequately refined. It'll make sixty in 10.8 seconds and reach 119mph and if driven a bit less maniacally, will return an average of 44.1mpg.

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.

The interior of the cee'd is an impressive piece of design. It's a touch bigger in most of the key measurement criteria than a Focus without looking like an MPV in the process. Where the car really succeeds is in resisting the temptation to once more lapse into wackiness, the controls being beautifully finished and resolutely straightforward to use without losing the focus on design elegance. The best designs are those which function best and in this regard, the cee'd scores a bullseye.

To drive it's there or thereabouts too. 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 and five-link independent rear setup as the best of its rivals. Benchmarking at work again. Next time you see clusters of suited Oriental gentlemen obsessing over a rival car's door pulls or switches or some other apparently trivial detail at an international motor show, you'll know the score.

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.

The cee'd SR has much to recommend it, blending Kia's new found quality with the low prices and high equipment levels that have underpinned the marque's growth over the years. If your budget is limited to £10,500, 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.