Kia Proceeds With Five-door Shooting Brake, Leaves North America Longing

Kia is readying the unveiling of its Proceed for European buyers later this month, taking great strides to ensure it matches the concept version. While the Ceed five-door already exists, the Proceed is a full-blown wagon. However, it’ll probably spend the majority of its time referred to as an “estate car” or “shooting brake,” since it’s not supposed to make it out of Europe. That’s slightly tragic, considering the model seems bent on showcasing Kia’s new emphasis on extra-handsome designs.

Kia revealed the Proceed Concept last year at the Frankfurt Motor Show to much praise from the media. The brand claimed it would foreshadow the future of the Ceed lineup’s styling, which bodes well, as the car looks like a Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo and Nissan GT-R put up their bastard offspring for adoption in South Korea.

Existing in final form as a five-door model, Kia is ditching the three-door standard for both shooting brakes in general and the existing “Pro Cee’d,” as it’s aware that buyers are in the market for more doors — not less. “With many European drivers now seeking performance alternatives to the three-door hot hatch, we began thinking about a different halo model for the Ceed family,” Kia’s European design chief Gregory Guillaume said last year.

It’s also ditching the apostrophes for the entire Ceed (formerly Cee’d) lineup, a change we’ve already seen applied for the 2018 model year. However, it’s likely to gain the same engines — a lineup that includes everything from a 1.0-liter T-GDi (turbocharged gasoline with direct injection) through a 1.6-liter, direct-injection diesel. Kia’s 1.6-liter gasoline turbo four is also likely to make an appearance in the Proceed GT. All engines are expected to be mated to a six-speed manual or seven-speed dual-clutch auto.

While we suppose it’s not impossible that the Proceed could eventually find its way stateside, the automaker was pretty clear about that not being a concern at present. Kia explicitly said the model was “designed, developed and engineered exclusively for Europe, it represents a unique proposition in the mid-size family car segment.”

It would do the same in North America, as the full-on wagon model would be longer than the Forte5 but shorter than the Optima sedan. It’s also supposed to be sleeker and more squat. But the automaker knows that crossovers/SUVs are where the big U.S. money is, and shipping a single wagon variant of a car to a country that might be preparing to tax the crap out of it might not be the best idea.

Maybe we’ll be fortunate enough to see it in North America in a couple of years, once the public opinion of station wagons shifts back toward the quiet awe they deserve and the trade war settles down. If not, at least those of us that do like the long and lean body style will have something to ogle from a distance. The teaser image of the production model’s rump seems to indicate Kia wants to adhere to the concept as closely as possible, which has us feeling positive about the brand’s current design vision.

We’ll know how closely the automaker followed the formula on September 13th, when Kia pulls the sheets off the Proceed. From there, the car makes its public debut at the 2018 Mondial de l’Auto in Paris on October 2nd.

[Images: Kia]