Yet another car falls victim to the SUV craze as Kia quietly kill off the three-door Pro Cee’d Hatchback to make room in its lineup for another SUV. This SUV is expected to slip in below the Kia Stonic and Kia Sportage and will compete against models like the Seat Ateca and Nissan Qashqai. Word has it that it will be an all-new design, but will borrow cues from the rest of KIA’s SUV range. It, too, will go by the Pro Cee’d name and will be an addition next to a now-confirmed shooting brake model as well. Want to know more? Keep reading for more info!

Further Reading

The new Pro Cee’d in hatchback form will make its debut in early 2018 with the shooting brake version coming shortly thereafter (most likely at the following auto show.) The new SUV has yet to receive even a potential debut date, but with the new hatch and shooting brake coming in early 2018, a Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2018 wouldn’t be out of the question. With that said, the model has been spied previously with the most recent spotting happening on the Nurburgring. You can expect a number of engines from the Hyundai i30 to make their way into the new SUV as it does share the same platform. For what it’s worth, it isn’t like this model will ever find its way to the States as Kia has been focusing quite largely on the European market as of late and that’s exactly where the new Pro Cee’d SUV is heading too.

TopSpeed’s Take

At this point, it seems like the SUV craze is never going to die. But, like all things, the craze will eventually come to an end. Hopefully, it happens at a time when it’s right for most automakers to revamp their lineups, but a little part of me hopes that SUVs suddenly prove to be worthless and automakers are sent scrambling not to find themselves belly up with massive inventories of SUVs that nobody wants. That might sound cruel, but we’ve seen a lot of cool cars killed off for SUVs and everyone seems to forget that they are only so hot because of the price of gas at the moment. If gas prices go up, all those little cars will suddenly become relevant again – just like they did in the last recession – and SUVs will fizzle away, left only in the limited interest of those who can afford to burn a gallon for every 19 miles. Will it happen? It’s possible, but if it doesn’t, it almost seems like the future will hold nothing but large SUVs with smaller cars and sedans become more of a luxury. Funny how the tides can turn, huh?

References

Kia Pro c'eed

Read our full review on the current Kia Pro C’eed.

Read our full review on the 2017 Kia Proceed Concept.