A year ago, Kia announced that the production of the 3-door Proceed will be axed and also a new model would came to cover the space.
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The market trend is changing into a more rational and practical vehicles, and the 3-door body style are dissapearing in every segment, despite premium brands. In Europe, all brands are killing the 3-door variants from its ranges, like Volkswagen, SEAT, Renault and even Hyundai, which is no longer selling two-door versions of the i30.
Another example is the recently launched third-generation Kia Ceed, which lost its sexy pro_cee’d hatchback/coupe (pictured above) in favor of the more practical, but equally cool, ProCeed shooting brake. Apparently, this won’t be an isolated case, as the South Korean manufacturer has no plans to offer cars with just two doors in the future.
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Case in point is the new ProCeed ‘Shooting Brake’ wagon launched in Paris this week to replace the pro_cee’d three-door. Head designer of Kia Europe, Gregory Guillaume, told the tale of how the car was axed, then revived once two extra doors were added.
“We were just about to start the new ProCeed, and the product guys said to us, ‘the ProCeed is dead, we’re not doing another one’…” he told CarAdvice.
“And you can imagine the faces of the guys on the team… because the segment was just disappearing in Europe, three-door hatches were just not there anymore.”
“We had really a moment of crisis in design, we thought we can’t just let that disappear…. So it’s up to us to find the answer that is valid today to carry on the same values.”
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Giullaume said he set his designers the challenge of making a new sporty product that would get the internal tick of approval. “Just don’t give me a three-door anymore, because they’ll axe that immediately,” he told them.
“Out of a moment of crisis we came up with an interesting answer.” Added Giullaume.
Source: (CarAdvice)
