Bishop: "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones." Curate: "Oh no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!" The real joke in George du Maurier's 1895 Punch cartoon is that if any part of an egg is bad, the whole of it is effectively useless, no matter how much the fawning Mr Jones may pretend otherwise. The Kia Venga isn't like that. The Kia Venga follows the more modern interpretation of a curate's egg in that it really is partly good and partly bad.Some good stuff first. Although this is not the most elegant car Kia has produced, it has been cleverly designed to offer more space than you think it does. Luggage volume with the rear seats in place, for example, is 440 litres, which is substantially more than the 385 litres provided by the Ford Focus hatchback, even though the Focus is nearly a foot longer.That, along with Kia's seven-year warranty, is one of the best reasons for buying a Venga. Fuel economy seems good enough at 62.8mpg, though you get that (and the corresponding 117g/km of CO2 emissions) only if you choose the 1.4-litre turbo diesel engine. The 1.4 and 1.6 petrol alternatives may be cheaper to buy in the first place but they are also much thirstier, the latter especially because it's available only with automatic transmission.The 1.4 diesel produces a maximum of 89bhp, and although that doesn't seem like an impressive figure it's enough to make the cee'd EcoDynamics reasonably perky. The mechanically similar Venga seems sluggish by comparison - more so than its one-second disadvantage in 0-60mph time might lead you to believe. The Venga is actually the lighter of the two, but it's also the taller, so I have to assume that extra aerodynamic drag is slowing it down.To continue the comparison, the cee'd is also more economical (67.8mpg), it has a lower CO2 rating (110g/km) and it is outstandingly better to drive. Early cee'ds weren't up to much, but once UK engineers got their hands on it it became one of the most impressive cars in its class in terms of ride and handling. The Venga, which has been designed to work best on smooth German tarmac, and has had very little UK input as far as its suspension set-up is concerned, is too soft at the front and too firm at the rear for our roads.We've said before that Kia makes two kinds of car - those that ride and handle brilliantly and those that do so terribly. The Venga is firmly in the first category. We've also said that Kia is one of the worst manufacturers (though all of them are bad these days) at providing enough visibility, and if anything the Venga drags the score down even further. This is yet another example of a car whose windows were designed with style as a priority and function as an afterthought. It really isn't good enough.I do not like the Venga. If it were offered to me, I would ask for a cee'd instead. The Venga has much more storage space, and it's about £1000 cheaper, but of the two it is definitely the inferior car. Engine 1396 cc, 4 cylinders Power 89 bhp @4000 rpm Torque 162 ib/ft @1750 rpm Transmission 6 speed manual Fuel/CO2 62.8 mpg / 117 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 14sec Top speed 104 mph Price From £15056.00 approx Release date 01/02/2010