Just three months after the arrival of the new Kia cee’d hatchback a second model joins the family – the Kia cee’d Sportswagon on-sale at all Kia dealerships from the 10th September.

The cee’d Sportswagon was revealed alongside the cee’d hatchback at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show. Like its predecessor, it was designed and engineered at Kia’s Frankfurt design studios and technical centre, and is made at the company’s Žilina plant in Slovakia. The cee’d Sportswagon is exclusively for European markets.

The cee’d SW has been one of Kia’s leading models in the fleet market, and this year it is outselling the hatchback among business users. With more daring styling and advanced technology features, the cee’d Sportswagon is expected to have even more widespread appeal among user-choosers.

With the fleet market so dominant, the cee’d Sportswagon will be sold exclusively in the UK with advanced and highly efficient turbodiesel engines. With their high torque outputs and low operating and running costs, they are ideally suited to the heavy loads and high mileages often inflicted on estate cars by business operators.

The entry-level 89bhp 1.4 CRDi engine develops 220Nm of torque from just 1500rpm, while the 126bhp 1.6 CRDi raises the torque output to 260Nm from only 1900rpm. Both transmissions, including the automatic offered with the 1.6-litre engine, are six-speed units, while manual-gearbox models are fitted with Kia’s Intelligent Stop & Go (ISG) fuel-saving, emissions-reducing engine stop/start technology.

As a result the 1.4-litre cee’d Sportswagon is capable of 67.3mpg and has CO2 emissions as low as 109g/km, which means a Benefit-in-Kind (BIK) taxation rate of 15 per cent in 2012-13. Manual 1.6-litre versions, with CO2 emissions of 116g/km, fall into the 17 per cent BIK band, and are almost as sparing in their use of fuel, with official combined economy of 64.2mpg, with prices starting at £16,895.

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