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Kia Forte

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One good looking small car.
At least as good as anything from Japan.

It will come over here next year with a 2 liter engine. A coupe, similar to last year’s concept, should follow soon after.

A true Civic fighter.

Conversation 19 comments

  2. Kia builds pure and utter garbage, and when you make a warranty claim, nothing is covered. Japanese cars rock, Pete and the Korean cars walk.

  4. Now they just need to work on their resale value. Kia resale value is horrible but yet they make excellent cars.

  10. This is actually a nicely designed car (at least the exterior; I haven’t seen any interior photos, yet). I think it ranks near the top of the mainstream compact sedan segment with the Mazda3 and Mitsubishi Lancer in regards to exterior style. This car would be the first Kia product that I would actually consider buying. Good job, Kia!

  11. Yep, this replaces the Spectra. Sources indicate that the Spectra name will be dropped, and the Forte name will be used in the U.S.

    It’s a nice enough looking car, though still a touch on the bland side.

    This would have rocked the house in 2000. Now it’s just “okay”.

    Light years better looking then the current Spectra though.

    Like others have said, if they could just get their resale value up and improve their customer relations from the warranty side…

  12. the front end mimics the civic, the c pillar has the same shape as the tl. but other then that it looks great!

  13. Kia stole the stearing wheel design from Mercedes and the tail light plastic from VW and the round wheels from Honda and whaaah.

  14. the tail light looks like Lexus IS or something, again, this says it all, Korean copy from Japanese as well!

  16. So they are dropping the Spectra name to start afresh again? I didn’t think the Spectra (especially in it’s current last gen Elantra form) had any negative connotations? I thought it was cleaver to cover up the Sepia with it… R.I.P. 2000-2008. Forte just sounds weird to me. Spectra sounded smart.

  17. too bad they’re not bringing the hatch version to the US. maybe we’ll get it in Canada, though.
    nice and sharp and clean, and much much better than the Spectra.
    BTW, we lease a Sportage, and no reliability problems at all (despite comments to the contrary above). solid and modern and okay to drive (though i’m campaigning for a smaller, more economical car when the lease runs out). i know older Kia’s are not very solid or reliable, but they seem to be changing this.

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