KIA is on a roll this year with the arrival of its third new model, the Cerato Hatchback, to join the sedan and Koup with not only a new body style but also significant upgrades that will also appear on the rest of the range early in 2011.
These include new six-speed transmissions, local suspension tune and NVH refinements. Kia hopes the Hatchback will open the door to 50 per cent of small-car buyers who will not buy a sedan, and that the transmission and suspension refinements will help to remove the remnants of the cheap and cheerful tag still adhering to the Korean badge.

LD Cerato hatch
Released: December 2005
Ended: January 2009
Family Tree: CeratoHAS there been a dumpier hatch sold in Oz during the 2000s? Debuting almost 18 months after the equally vanilla-looking four-door sedan version, the LD Cerato five-door too was a wallflower of a car, offered briefly in a not-so-well-equipped single-spec guise, with the front wheels driven by a raucous 105kW/186Nm 2.0-litre twin-cam four-cylinder petrol engine mated to a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic. Like its pretty TD successor, the Cerato hatch was based on the contemporary (XD series) Hyundai Elantra, but shared no visible parts. Even drearier than the design was this car’s dynamics. Frankly we’d prefer the entertaining flakiness of the Cerato’s Spectra, Shuma and Mentor predecessors!
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