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Originally a small coupe, Kia's Proceed became a small estate in 2019 - but a very stylish one. It sold alongside the brand's Ceed Sportswagon estate but offered swoopier 'shooting brake' styling to create a 'Fastback' look with that 'want one' factor. The brand promised that the drive dynamics would match the aesthetic promise - and updated the car in 2021 to create the version of it that we're going to look at here from a used buyer's perspective.
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History
Kia called this Proceed a 'Shooting Brake'. Isn't that just another word for an 'estate car'? Well no, not really. A Shooting Brake, in contrast, is more of an occasional and much more stylised load-lugger, loved by sportsman - and especially shooting parties (hence the name) - from the 1950s and 1960s, particularly here in Britain. A kind of 'estate coupe' if you like, which is why virtually all 'shooting brake' designs from the last century had only three doors. Princess Anne's Reliant Scimitar GTE from the Seventies was one of these, with similar cars like the Lancia Beta HPE, the Jaguar XJS Lynx Eventer and the Volvo 1800ES dating from the same era.
In more recent times, the 'Shooting Brake' concept made a comeback with designs like Ferrari's FF. But you'll know it better perhaps from two Mercedes models, 'Shooting Brake' versions of that Stuttgart brand's CLS and CLA models. It was the CLA Shooting Brake that prompted Kia to produce this stylish Proceed derivative, first launched in 2019, then updated at the end of 2021 to create the car we're going to look at here. With this facelifted model, the engine range was refined down to a single 1.5 T-GDI petrol unit. It sold until 2025, when it was discontinued and not replaced.
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What you get
If you're going to sell on style, you have to make an effort and, sure enough, the Proceed shares only the front wings and bonnet with other Ceed body styles. The roof line is 43mm lower than on an ordinary Ceed SW estate and 5mm longer, plus the windscreen is 1.5-degrees more steeply-raked and the rear window is slanted 65-degrees off the vertical. Plus you get smart 17-inch wheels.
This improved post-2021 model gained visual changes at the front end, including grille changes and a revised headlamp design, all in line with the improvements made at the time to the rest of the Ceed range. And it features more aggressive front bumper styling than you'd see on any ordinary Ceed. What the designers called a 'coast to coast' look for the rear that unites the LED tail lamps with the double exhaust pipes.
Inside, it actually feels quite special, especially with the mandatory 'GT-Line' trim, which features leather and Alcantara sports seats with red-stitching and GT-Line badging. There's a sporty flat-bottomed steering wheel and black roof lining. For this revised model, a large 12.3-inch instrument cluster screen was paired with a 10.25-inch centre monitor to further enhance driver interaction.
This model's lower hip point means you rather drop down onto the rear seat bases, but it does compensate to some extent for the reduced height of that swept-back ceiling, meaning that there's actually more headroom in the back than the exterior styling leads you to expect there might be. Even so, those of basket ball-playing statute still won't thank you much for a lift home. The rear roof ceiling height falls from 940mm in a Ceed Hatch to 890mm here. Leg room space is reduced too, down from 720mm in the hatch to 670mm in this shooting brake model. We still reckon though, that one six-footer could just about sit behind another in reasonable comfort, thanks to the scalloped seatbacks.
The 594-litre cargo area (which is 50% bigger than that of a standard Ceed Hatch) actually offers more space than you'd get from conventionally-styled compact estates of this kind. Like station wagon versions of the Ford Focus, the Vauxhall Astra and the SEAT Leon from this era. And its capacity is only 31-litres less than you'd get in a Ceed Sportswagon, mainly because of this more steeply-raked rear screen.
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What to look for
We had quite a lot of trouble finding anyone with a bad word to say about this MK3 Proceed. So it's just the usual stuff. Give the electrical systems a thorough test and make sure the central screen has had all its necessary map updates. Check the alloys for scuffs. The interior for child damage. And insist on a fully stamped-up service history. Previous Proceeds weren't great for paint quality, so check that. And if you're looking at the CRDi diesel, make sure the DPF Diesel Particular Filter hasn't clogged up with too much suburban and town driving. Careful questioning of the seller's driving habits should help here.
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Replacement parts
(approx based on a 2019 Proceed 1.5 T-GDi ex VAT) An air filter will be priced in the £8-£15 bracket, an oil filter will sit in the £4-£7 bracket and a pollen filter costs in the £7-£21 bracket. For a pair of front brake discs, you're looking at paying in the £41 to £119 bracket, with a pair of rear discs costing up to around £23-£60. A pair of front brake pads are around £18-£45, while a pair of rear pads sit in the £11-£48 bracket for a set. An alternator can cost anything between £208-£313.
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On the road
By 2021, the days were gone when Kia was content to merely try and reach a minimum class standard when it comes to drive dynamics. Ex-BMW M-Chief Albert Biermann, who during the creation of this car was Kia's Head of handling development, spent six months with his team fine-tuning this Proceed and the brand promised that buyers would feel the difference, even on a very short test drive.
Revisions over the Ceed Hatch and Sportwagon of this period include a body lowered by 5mm, plus a rather counter-intuitive combination of stiffer springs and softer anti-roll bars to keep the tyres in better contact with the road surface. At speed, you realise immediately that the set-up's firmer than it would be in a normal Ceed but at the same time, the car flows over uneven tarmac with supple confidence. And when the road turns twisty, the consistent and relatively feelsome steering delivers enough feedback to encourage a more aggressive driving style, should that be appropriate.
As part of the 2021 update, the Proceed line-up was slimmed down to just one engine option, a 158bhp four cylinder 1.5-litre T-GDi powerplant mated to 6-speed manual transmission. In terms of handling updates for the facelifted third-generation model, Kia's largely left the set-up alone, which is fine, as that was one of this model's strongest aspects. Engine noise was enhanced by a soundtrack emphasised through flaps in the exhaust and delivered into the cabin through the stereo speakers.
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Overall
You probably won't have started out wanting a Proceed in searching the market for something a bit more stylish and interesting that suits your family needs. Now that you know about this model though, it's possible that it might ideally suit a desired combination of desirability and sensibility in a relatively affordable versatile compact family car. We'd still have hesitated to recommend it a decade or so ago, given the vanilla way that Kias back then tended to drive. But all that had changed by the time of this updated Proceed's introduction in 2021.
This model's 'shooting brake' concept may be a nod to past hunting wagons of the landed gentry but the concept here is very much of our time: a compact yet spacious estate that doesn't drive like one, that's nicely finished, practically configured and relatively affordable to run. It's very much an estate for people who wouldn't normally buy such a thing. And that makes it quite a tempting prospect.
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