Kia might add a pretty convertible to its ever-expanding cee’d range; the ex_cee’d concept shows what it could look like.

Lower than the five-door cee’d, the new convertible shares its floorplan and running gear but has mostly new body panels. Its nose is recognisably cee’d but with a shallower grille and more expressively curved multi-dimensional headlamps. Similarly, the sculpted indents in the lower door panels are carried through from the standard cee’ds but are deeper here, picked out with chrome trims. The forward-leaning stance, short overhangs, and air scoops embedded in the deep bumpers add purposefulness but not aggression. It’s a clean, elegant and slightly understated design.

Unlike many recent convertibles, this one has a soft top. Kia says this is because the company’s research suggests that not everyone wants the complex and space-hungry metal roofs of the coupe-cabriolets that currently dominate the market. The roof is power operated.

“I’m convinced the fabric roof will have a renaissance,” said designer Peter Schreyer. “For me it’s the quintessential element of a rewarding cabrio.”

The cee’d range overall is a coming-of-age car for Kia: they’re billing it as a breakthrough vehicle that will make their cars a mainstream European choice. The fine-looking range is getting good reviews for its styling and build and its remarkable seven-year warranty. The driving dynamics haven’t excited many testers but that’s unlikely to matter much to most buyers.

With the five-door hatch already on sale, the company claims strong sales so far. The “sporty wagon”, or SW, version will go into production at the company’s Slovakian factory in August and be on sale by the end of the year. There’s no mention this time round of the pro_ceed 3-door concept that was show last autumn in Paris, though.

Just like almost every other carmaker at Geneva this year, Kia wants to tell us about how environmental responsible it is. In Kia’s case the evidence is a research programme into alternative propulsion technology that involves placing a fleet of 3,000 hybrids with the Korean government and putting on sale a hybrid version of the unloved Rio. More convincingly, the company points out that it has a number of economical models on sale with CO2 emissions below 130g/km, if that’s what you want.