More premium? I guess taste is personal. For me the Cruze's design is haphazard as if different parts were loosely stuck together. The side profile and the rear end just don't fit the fierce front fascia. Forte's lines flow in a more sleek and harmonious way. But of course, this is a Forte thread so expect some bias.

Speaking of Cruze, look how photoshop does wonders.

I'm not sure where OneShift got the first picture from as the font used in the dials are different from the actual model in the second picture. The Australian Cruze has the same dials as the second one.




S-spec, or rather Grade-S is the baremetal City apparently, not the E.
http://www.honda.com.my/city/detail/
Looking through the spec list, many of the extras that come in the E are mainly aesthetic apart from the useful folding rear bench.

On paper the similarly-priced 1.6 Forte SX/Novus wins hands down, but of course reliability issues remains unknown for such a new model; plus the past reputations of Naza/Kia/Koreans aren't as good as the Japs.

The logo itself doesn't look bad but unfortunately it's resembles Lexus too much for my liking. The original Kia logo is just fine.

Likely to be the Koup since that's Kia's only coupe, although "sportscar" might be an overstatement.

Depends on your expectations. It's no Genesis Coupe, no Supra, no Civic Si/Type R; in fact it's merely a 2 door variant of the sedan.
Think along the lines of 3-door variants of 5-door hatches and it makes perfect sense.

Throw a performance engine or a turbo into the Koup, and it'll jack the price up and lose more customers. Not forgetting higher FC, insurance, maintenance costs... People will then think, oh well, I might as well get a Golf GTi instead.

As much as I like the fierce Koup bumper, it probably won't suit the sleek lines of the sedan. Maybe even look ahbeng-ish.

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Oct 30 2009, 08:28 PM

Hm... Santorini Blue looks pretty cool, but nah the new logo still looks too similar to Lexus.

Anyway, a North American perspective of the 2010 Forte SX. Surprisingly it ditches the chrome finishes on the exterior, but as expected replaces the faux chrome with the Koup's gunmetal in the interior console. It also comes with manual air conditioning although I believe in our region we'll still be getting the auto-climate control.

Apart from the subtle cosmetic changes, it's still pretty much the same Forte with the oversensitive accelerator paddle.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/30/2010-kia-forte-review/


Ebony black never looked as good as this
Although I still prefer Graphite.

The Forte is pretty much similar in size to the Civic, albeit with a larger boot. In fact, the Civic's hatch-sized boot space is pathetic compared to other C-segment rival sedans.

Can't really compare the 308 to the Forte since it's still a continental car hence the higher price. For what it's worth, the 308's price highlights how expensive the Civic (and other CBU Japanese cars) is.

We can clearly see Naza/Kia's intentions here - It's aiming to bring down the similarly priced City, and at the same time highlight how much more one has to pay for the Civic.



Nevertheless, the 4-speed auto box looks bad alongside the Civic's 5-speed paddle shift unit...

Found something interesting...

http://kia-buzz.com/?p=2003

For all the Civic-copying the Forte has been accused of, take a look at the new Accord Euro's front grill and suddenly it appears that Honda also took a leaf out of the Forte's concept design.

My point is, if it's a good design who cares whether it resembles another brand. Due to Peter Schreyer's previous involvement in Audi, there has been comments that the current Kia design cue imitates many Audi models. For me it's a case of learning from the best, and kudos for Kia's designers for producing good-looking contemporary cars.

Having said that, I'm not convinced that all Kia models can carry the H-grill. The facelifted Ceed looks more laid-back and generic compared to the more sleek and aggressive predecessor model, while the Picanto is an old model which looks totally out of place in the new Kia lineups. Maybe the next Picanto might take some styling cues from the larger brother Venga; in fact maybe Kia should consider marketing the Venga globally rather than limited to Europe. It'd give the supermini segment more competition in particularly the benchmark Jazz, the 2, and the surprisingly-not-so-common i20; plus sweep aside the plain jane Yaris who is in need of a midlife facelift soon.

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Nov 2 2009, 05:59 PM

Oh yeah... first thing to do is to change the Naza logo into a Kia emblem

That's probably the Metallic Bronze. There's no grey colour for the Forte, the closest you'll get to grey is the Titanium Silver which I believe looks much better than the generic bright silver.

Different red. Koup gets a flat shade of red (which may fade with time as most solid colours do), while the sedan gets Spicy Red which is metallic and a little wee bit darker.

Do you guys get the Orange?

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Nov 4 2009, 04:06 AM

Yeah... red clashes with the rear lamps, while black obscures the Koup's piano black grill. Maybe Kia would like to add some red to the edges of the Koup's black grill, like how the Mk.V Golf GTi does.

Bright Silver is probably the most common colour on the roads these days regardless of what brand/model of car, but the good thing is it'll be easier to sell in the future. Exotic shades (bright orange, lime green) are less welcome in the car yard.

Saw an Ebony black Forte today... Great colour which highlights the chrome of the SX/SLi even though it's a solid shade instead of metallic. And I just realised that the Kia's Australian website spelled "Graphite" as "Graphic"... typo perhaps. I'm quite surprised that Naza didn't include Titanium Silver, that's such a good colour choice.

Kia KND, or will be known as K7/Cadenza once it's mass-produced, has already been unveiled in Korea a month ago.

There's a video of the concept's launch in the link below...
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/18/kia-cad...amanti-w-video/

Lovely rear lamp which is reminiscent of the "artery-effect" of the BMW's F01 7 series (and future Beemer designs). The side profile is also very similar to the F01 too, but again if Kia had to follow a particular design there's no wrong following the best.

More here:
http://www.kia-world.net/index.php/2009/04...ul-auto-show-3/

Makes the Forte's design look conservative

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Nov 13 2009, 06:00 PM

Good to see more people getting interested in the Forte... and if the sales are good then maybe it will eventually increase the resale value of the car and rectify the bad reputation of the past.

Nice video, although some of the things mentioned are not really applicable for our Forte's specs:
1. We're stuck with a 4 speed auto... 5 speed's only for North American 2.4 SXs
2. Ecominder? Do we even get that?
3. The base model Forte still lacks many options which may persuade buyers to choose a higher spec model (i.e. pay more), but of course it's still cheaper than the other Japanese rivals.
4. They didn't compare it to the i30 (which is selling better in Australia), but it's understandable that Kia didn't want to whack their cousins. Elantra's too old and unrefined to be a rival.
5. Space-wise... The Civic's boot is well-known to be tiny, while the 3 is never famous for size. If we're talking about size then the Tiida/Latio/Versa kicks everybody's butt. It's a funny looking car where its looks smaller than other C-segments on the outside, but offers same cabin space if not more. But nah... it's an old car with old tech.

Still yet to test drive the Forte... although there's already a lot of people around me feeling sceptical about Kias and recommending Civics instead. I too like a 2.0 Civic Sport but for that price I'd get a Conti instead. And I don't think I can get a Koup because of the nagging lol...

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Nov 18 2009, 06:53 AM

That's why as much as I like driving Hondas (still love the Jazz's drive), the Civic 2.0 Sport is totally out of my consideration... FFS they are selling for 34-35K AUD !!! I can get a 118KW Golf MKVI for that price... Don't know why Hondas are so overpriced everywhere in the world... higher resale value maybe, but over here in Australia any car over 5 years old is worth pennies regardless of the make.

Forte is WIN... full spec 2.0 26KAUD driveaway... beat that. Too bad it also has some niggles such as 4 speed auto and the lack of a middle headrest in the rear bench... I can live with that.

Anyway, a practical test of the C-segment boots.

Civic's pathetic bootspace is no match for the other rivals hence it isn't even worth testing it... Mazda 3 doesn't fare any much better.

From the comments posted on that youtube page, it's funny to see that the reviewer gets bombed for not putting in large bulky items first. Dunno how to pack boot is it? To be fair, I wouldn't think of putting an LCD TV into the boot with other stuff either... crack it, and GG.

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Nov 18 2009, 10:55 AM

White and black are supposed to be solid colours unless Naza/Kia decides to do something different, or maybe 2010 models have extra metallic shades, which I doubt.

The colours available worldwide at the moment are:

Clear White
Ebony Black
Light Graphite
Titanium Silver
Bright Silver
Metallic Bronze
Champange Gold
Spicy Red
Santorini/Corza Blue
Sweet Orange
Dark Cherry
Lime (Koup)
Racing Red (Koup only)

Some places get certain colours and miss out on others.... Australia doesn't have orange and dark cherry for the sedan, nor do we have lime for the Koup.

Surprisingly it seems to be a major problem affecting only Sporean Fortes. There's no complaints about that in Australia, although we don't see that many Fortes around; there doesn't seem to be much going on in North America as well...

Metallic Bronze has a brownish hue while Titanium Silver is more dark greyish-silver.
Gold is well, champagne gold, which is not available in Msia.

The nice thing about the Forte's colours over other rivals is that the metallic shades appear different under different lighting conditions.