The Kia Proceed Concept turned a lot of heads at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show. Initially thought of as a design study to determine the design direction of the next-generation Ceed, the positive reception surrounding the concept forced Kia to rethink its initial plans for the car. A production version is now in the works, and word on the street is that it will make its debut at the 2018 Paris Motor Show this October.

Kia has not formally announced plans to turn the Proceed Concept into a production car, but it is understood that a third member of the Ceed family is on its way. A high-ranking Kia executive — in this case, the company’s head of product planning, David Labrosse — even dropped a few crumbs to fuel the speculation on what model this could turn out to be. Speaking with Auto Week, Labrosse hinted that a third version of the Ceed is arriving and the likely place for its arrival would be in Paris sometime in the last quarter of the year. Since the Paris Motor Show is held annually in October, this is most likely the event that Labrosse is alluding to.

To keep the fire of speculation going, another Kia exec — Kia Europe’s former COO, Michael Cole — mentioned that the new Ceed will be sportier than the hatchback and wagon models that debuted at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show. Cole didn’t dive into the specifics, but if his comments are to be believed, a production version of the Proceed shooting brake concept could be the model that the Korean automaker is preparing in time for its debut in Paris this October.

It would make sense for the third member of the Ceed family to be different from the hatchback and wagon models that we already saw in Geneva. Creating a separate identity would give customers plenty of options to choose from as far as the Ceed lineup is concerned.

Selfishly, we want it to be a shooting brake. Like everybody else, we saw what the concept version looked like in Frankfurt last year, and we were floored by how stunning it looked. Granted, we’re not expecting Kia to keep the design as it is, but the overall profile of the concept gave us chills that we rarely get from a Kia concept. We’re not fans of the concept’s interior, so if there are changes to be made, Kia can start there.

If the third variation of the Kia Ceed ends up being a shooting brake, it could also serve as a successor to the three-door Pro Cee’d coupes that Kia offered during the first two generations of the model. Knowing what we know about Kia’s plans for the Ceed — a hot hatch and a crossover are two other models that are being discussed — it makes sense to give the whole lineup some diversity. A shooting brake with a lot of the concept's bells and whistles would go a long way in doing just that.

References

Read our full review on the 2017 Kia Proceed Concept.

Read our full review on the 2018 Kia Ceed.

Read more Kia news.