| First Drive | Vienna, Austria| 2010 Kia cee'd |

We don't need to tell you that the cee'd was a seminal car for Kia when it sprouted in 2006. Banging on about that is all getting a bit patronising now, and to be honest we wouldn't have mentioned it except that Kia itself keeps bringing it up.

That's probably because it's true though: the cee'd put Kia on the map thanks to it being epically above average. This is the facelifted version, which aims to push it yet further away from the middle of the road.

In the Metal

Kia is so vogue these days that it even has a design direction, the aesthetic of which you can see right here on the cee'd's new nose. It's a notable improvement too, with a chromed grille stretched between re-drawn headlamps, together endowing the hatch with a sharper, wider look. Around the back there's a set of 'LED' lamps - placed in air quotes because they're not actually real, but rather styled to look like LEDs. You know, like a premium car, but cheaper to make.

Inside, the cabin architecture remains almost identical to the outgoing car's, except the centre stack is redesigned and the centre console is joined to it more coherently by way of a pair of Audi TT style braces. The buttons are now laid out in a cleaner, more intuitive way and the two air vents straddling it are trimmed in better looking materials - including gloss black, which seems to be this year's fake carbon fibre. It's very lovely though. The steering wheel gains an extra spoke as well, with buttons on all four of them depending on the spec.

What you get for your Money

The changes aren't just skin deep, as Kia is nothing if not determined to mix it up with the best Europe has to offer. So, the suspension, steering, body shell and even the chassis itself all get a good going over. The suspension bushes are new and the geometry changed to improve refinement, while there are new front and rear chassis sub-structures for the drive train and suspension, explicitly engineered to reduce noise and vibration. Kia has even stuffed a load of soundproofing foam in the pillars and plastered some new rubber around the doors to make things as quiet as possible.

And there are five new colours to choose from, including two shades of silver and an angry cherry hue called 'Infra Red'. Very clever. The three trim levels of the pre-facelift car (LX, EX and TX) are carried over.

Driving it

The behind the wheel experience does indeed fulfil the promise of the changes, albeit subtly. It's not revelatory, but it's refined, slick-riding and a notch above the pre-facelift car - and everything else in Kia's portfolio, for that matter.

Granted, the majority of Viennese roads we sampled the car on are like glass compared to the UK's gritty tarmac, but the Korean's body control is impressive nonetheless, with the damping soaking up the majority of road imperfections before they shake the cabin. It's still not the most dynamic thing to steer, because the rack, re-tuned though it is, has an artificial weighting that takes away any feel. Low rolling resistance tyres are standard now, to the benefit of fuel consumption across the range.

Although the comprehensive raft of noise and vibration reducing measures we outlined earlier might suggest the cee'd has now reached Golf levels of refinement, it hasn't. There's still plenty of wind noise at motorway speeds, and while most of the low-rev diesel rattle we used to expect of a budget Korean hatchback is banished, there's still an unpleasant diesel din at full tilt.

But that's not to say the diesel models are to be avoided. We tested the all-new 1.6-litre CRDi set to be introduced for the first time with this facelift. Called the 'U2' engine (possibly because, like its namesake, it epitomises blandness), it's got more torque than the current 1.6-litre unit, but uses less fuel and hence puffs out less CO₂ emissions. Bono would approve. Will it set your world alight? Nope, but it's in the £35 tax bracket (119g/km), capable of 64.2mpg and has enough twist to feel sprightly so long as you're not prone to anything more than mildly enthusiastic dawdling. Start/stop engine technology (labelled 'ISG' in Kia's case) is available as an option now too.

Worth Noting

The five-door hatch and the estate version get the changes but the pro_cee'd three-door remains the same. The cynic might suggest that's because Kia can garner more publicity by launching that car separately, although the three-door was launched later than the other two.

In any event, before that Kia has two new models to think about in the shape of the new Sorento SUV, which we've also just driven, and the spanking new Venga people carrier. Both get their show debuts at Frankfurt this month (September).

Summary

Ultimately, nothing about the Kia cee'd is below par, and it now looks notably more handsome too, which makes it a genuinely appealing hatch. It's not riveting stuff, but the quality and drive are as good as most of what Europe has to offer. Mate that to an impressive kit roster, cracking value for money and a seven-year warranty and some will find it justifiably difficult to resist moseying on down to a Kia dealership.