First Drive: 2010 Kia Forte
The Forte is technically the successor to the Spectra, but it is really so much more than that. This time, Kia decided to leave the help of the rocked-out Soul hamsters behind and instead concentrate on product, not marketing – though we do like the hamsters. The main competitors in the segment include the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla and Mazda Mazda3 and when you add in the secondary targets of the Ford Focus and Chevrolet Cobalt, it shows why anyone would need to strike hard when attempting to show up as a seriously dominant player that sells on more than just low prices.
See also:
Fine-tuning an already competitive Ride & Handling package
When they developed the original Kia cee'd, Kia's European chassis engineers
based in Germany were determined to ensure that the newcomer was among the
'segment-best' for ride and handling - targe ...
Leftlane’s bottom line
Kia is no longer content to be the butt of jokes or the car of last resort
for those who may be fiscally challenged.
Although still very much a Hyundai rival, Kia finally has a design language
a ...
THE VERDICT
Kia won’t release pricing for the Optima for another few weeks, but we’re
assured it will come in at under $20,000 to start and we expect it to undercut
(slightly) the Sonata, which starts at ...