I can recommend the new Kia Ceed. Looks not that bad, build quality is not much behind the germans, reasonable price.
We even drive a Kia Picanto (9000€) as a daily driver, as my company's parking lot is small and crowded and the car looks like Scarface after just one year.
Our companies run quite a large fleet of Kia's in Africa, from Picanto to Sportage and I must say that we are extremely pleased with them. Very reliable, well-built and quite stylish. My current Optima witha 2-litre petrol engine is a nice car, though not in any way a driving machine!
The only negative for us is that in our market, they are starting to close the large gap in pricing with the Japanese that they previously enjoyed.
