The all-new 2011 Kia Forte 5 door hatchback joins Kia Forte sedan and two-door Kia Forte Koup.
Kia Motors America plans to expand its Forte range by introducing the 5-door Forte with hatchback body style.
The 2011 Kia Forte 5 door has been one of four exciting Kia cars that made their inaugural public premieres at the New York International Auto Show. It has been put on display alongside hot-looking Kia Sorento SX, new Optima sedan and completely redesigned Sportage crossover.
The all-new Forte 5-door follows the design lines of the Forte sedan and the two-door Koup. It incorporates similar front-end styling as the four-door sibling with minor changes made to the front grille. Major styling changes have been done to the car’s rear-end, which received the fifth-door for sportier look and added practicality.
The 5-door Kia Forte will ba available with three efficient four-cylinder engines coupled with either a six-speed manual or automatic transmission. According to Kia, North American customers will be able to choose from 2.0L and 2.4L engines, while consumers outside of the USA and Canada will be able to choose between 1.6L and 2.0L engines.
Kia revealed the 2011 Forte 5-door has been scheduled to go on sale in the NA market in October, so we will have to wait until then to hear more information about available trim levels and detailed pricing.
2011 Kia Forte 5-door images:
April 6th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Particularly like the alloy wheels they have used.
April 6th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
This is very similar to the Kia Ceed which we get in the UK and Europe.
April 6th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
The Forte 5-door will come in two trim levels. LX and EX. It was in the Q&A book at NYIAS.
April 6th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Excuse me, I meant EX & SX.
April 6th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Looks like a Rondo.
April 6th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
It is quite a bit smaller than a Rondo. It almosts seems the size of a Spectra5.
April 6th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Boy this line up just keeps getting better and better. The 5 door is just in time for Ford’s Focus hatch (nothing but a Subaru design). I hear the aging Cruze is supposed to arrive with a 5 door as well. I feel sorry for the Cruze because it has to compete with the next Elantra and the rumored next Generation Civic. The Forte series is ok especially after looking at the next Scion TC, the Koup ain’t got nothing to worry about. The Koup’s interior looks better than that TC too.
April 6th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
From the press materials, it sounds like all 2011 Fortes will be getting new six-speed transmissions, both automatic and manual. Hopefully, they’ll be better than the current car’s–the Forte’s clutch is one of the worst currently on the market.
April 6th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Seems like Kia will also add six-speed automatic to other two Fortes and replace the oldschool 4-speeds. This will probably happen for 2011 model year.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
i read on LeftLaneNews.com (a week ago BTW… himi… you’re getting late on all the kia articles… there’s a LOT on there and they’re informative) that the interior is a bit different than current Forte’s and they will all be getting the refresh, the new tranny, built in nav, and a couple other tweaks.
but i do agree the competition won’t stand well against these cars. they’re doing great!
April 6th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Good it’s going to need a six speed and navigation. The C segment riavls ain’t nothing to be playing with. Except the Corolla and Cruze. Which car you guys think is aging faster the Corolla, TC or the long awaiting cruize?
April 7th, 2010 at 4:00 am
Yeah, the reason there are no interior shots of the Forte 5-door is because the one at NYIAS has the 2010 dash and console. I did post pictures of the interior of the one at the show on the forum, but lately the forum is so hard to use I’m about to give up on it entirely.
April 7th, 2010 at 8:50 am
This NEEDS the Damm Sonata Turbo. It would OWN Mazdaspeed 3. Mazdaspeed 3 has 263 HP and 25 MPG. That 2.0 GDi Turbo in a Forte could give this thing 274 HP and with a size difference over Sonata, maybe 36-37 MPG!!!!
April 7th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Greg is right, I’ve emailed the problems to Himi, but just checked on the forum (via my normal links) and cannot get to any of them, error came up saying it had crashed or something to that effect. You couldn’t tell if your posting had gone through correctly and also no currently posting since Oct 31st are being shown as new postings – major problems that I hope gets rectified as I’m not doing any postings on the forums till its fixed.
April 7th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Am I right in thinking ‘Forte’ is known as ‘Cerato’ in some markets? in that case I dont think we will see this in Europe as ‘cerato’ got discontinued in 2006 and was replaced by ‘Ceed’. I am interested to see the two smallest Kias replaced – Picanto/Morning and Rio are looking very old now as is Carens/Rondo
April 7th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Picanto should have two/three doors. no more! I dont see why, anyone wants to make a family friendly 5 door in the A-segment… Its just so impractical.
.
And its nice to think of a Forte with the turbo. that would rock!
April 8th, 2010 at 1:20 am
We all have dreams BJD lol.
April 8th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
@jtz I think the Corolla on paper is the oldest one… but in character the Cruze is old as H3LL already and its not even here. I’m over it already. it was nice to look at for like a few days and then it was
@hyundaismoke i agree with you on the OPTIMA (don’t forget they both get it and this is a KIA forum haha i’m messin’ with ya) turbo going into this. I think if they addressed that & supposedly the seats that few of the published testers have liked (although i’m 5’8″ athletic build and the seats are great for me.) and POSSIBLY an option of AWD in addition to FWD with the turbo… they’d have the Mazdaspeed3 AND the SubaruWRX rear ends handed to them. but they should have them as mix & match options… they don’t need to make each option in hi-numbers for it to sell well and hold value…. you build it and they will come. but we are already here….
April 9th, 2010 at 12:58 am
The Forte really needs the Turbo. It would shut those last Anti-Hyundai/KIA Tea Partiers up.
April 9th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
A mild turbo yes, like the Genesis Coupe turbo motor.
April 9th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
A mild turbo(210-230 hp) would be nice for a GTI competitor but it needs the 274 hp version to tackle the MS3 since Kia is sayinng that it wants to be soprt oriented. Don’t let the Optima have all the fun dammit lol.
April 10th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
A 2.0L turbo from Genesis Coupe would fit the Forte 5-door perfectly.
April 12th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
The new 5-door Forte looks much better around the C-pillar than the photochops seen earlier.
And we even learn that the 2011 will have 6-speed manuals and automatics with the 2.0 L engine!
Who knows? My wife is on the market this year and could park her 2011 next to my 2010 SX…. Feeling jealous already…
April 12th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
The 2.0L would go great with the Forte. It would be a great Mazda 3 and every .05 of second seeing on the road Civic. I wonder if the interior is totally different since their are no interior photos. That would be nice a much improved interior to go with the new navigation system.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
jtz, I was inside the Forte 5-door in New York. The only interior differences are steering wheel paddle shifters, slightly different center stack, and the rear seat cushions fold forward to allow the seatbacks to fold completely flat. The reason that they didn’t allow pictures was because the plastic on the doors and on the inner part of the hatch were made of untextured pre-production plastic.
October 29th, 2010 at 5:47 am
5-door hatchbacks are OK, but I would like the station wagon version, with real luggage room. I am tired of the term, “versatile,” which is code for “you have to fold down the rear seats if you want to carry cargo. How much trouble would it be to have a wagon with at least as much rear overhang as the sedan? In Europe I rented the Kia Cee’d wagon. What a great, roomy car! (…and the Diesel got 45 mpg!).
November 20th, 2010 at 1:04 am
I’m a service writer for a kia dealer, and we just got a new Forte5. I looks awesome, but i have to say that i am still parshall for the Spectra5. I own an 07′ and it is an awsome car!!! I sold kia’s for 2 years and it is awesome to see them finally start coming out with some cars to compete. They are a great product and deserve to be recognized as such!!! I totally agree, Kia needs to come out with some kind of Turbo for the forte!! An AWD would sick as well!!! There is a huge market for tuners out there and kia could take over that market if they wanted to. You do know that kia is coming out with a turbo 4 cylinder sportage in the SX package, with a dampering suspension!!! They’ve got it, they just need to put it in the Forte5!!
January 11th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Turbo is needed, AWD would be nice, and manual trans should be more prominent across their whole line-up (more than base level trim models).
January 11th, 2011 at 9:53 pm
Manual transmission is available on all Koup and 5-door models. For the SEDAN, manual is only available on LX models.
October 21st, 2011 at 5:05 am
I have a 2011 forte and I loved it at first however I am having some problems with the brakes. I have taken it in and I get told it’s fine but the brakes sometimes don’t catch it just clicks and doesn’t slow down at all. If the pavement changes at all or a bump in the road it will not stop…