AutoCritical

Whenever I read or hear about a Kia car, there are a few negative preconceived ideas that immediately pop into my head; one notably is my personal distaste towards their styling themes. When I first saw the 2010 Kia Cerato Forte, I honestly thought it was a Honda (Civic), so you can imagine my surprise when I first saw that it wasn’t! Now, there is no doubt there are some striking similarities between the Honda and Kia, but it would be too easy to simply dismiss this as a copy, we will save that for the Chinese automotive companies!

Kia Cerato Forte or Honda Civic?

From a straight comparison to any prior model of Kia, it seems that the 2010 model is something that is actually pleasant to look at, with nothing really standing out as offensive or not working in harmony with the rest of the vehicle.

Using sharp angular lines creates a more aggressive Kia

An interesting disjointed belt line brings an emphasis on a dynamic front end of the car. The spear created shows a focusing on the stance of the car (I have not really seen this in any prior Kia design), rather than the length of the car (to give the illusion the car is bigger than it may actually be). Reinforcing the stance of the car are the angular notions of the grille and headlights that are further accentuated with a spears underneath them.

Adjusted lines to show a stronger relationship between the side and the front of the car

Even with a disconnected belt line, it is very successful in capturing enough light to show some form through out the design on the side. Additional to creating more form, and to stay away from appearing too ‘tall’ (a result of a larger, functional DLO) the lower section of the doors above the side rockers, is a sculpted negative shape that creates a darker shadow. When I see the contrast of the light on the belt line shoulder, comparing it with the lower negative section, the doors still seem quite flat and blocky. Also, I am yet to see how the lower body side relates to the front, or for that matter, the rear of the car.

Adjustments to show how the relationship between the side and the rear of the car.

If there was any need for a design to have less emphasis on the height of the car, this would be it, the rear of the Cerato Forte (especially if you compare it with the front!). From what I have usually seen, the concept sketch of a car rarely looks ‘tall’ deliberately. No doubt, the resultant of this height is due to some engineering restrictions. The success on the rear of this Kia, although pleasant looking, it does not fully achieve a better suited solution.

Although not a suitable production alternative, it shows how some adjustments can reduce the visual 'height' of the rear.

I vaguely remember seeing some clay models of an early proposal of the BMW 5 series; this too had a problem of looking too ‘tall’ around the section of the deck lid. After a successful refinement process, we have a solution that we see on the roads today, although not looking ‘wide’, it does not look ‘tall’ either.

Pleasant

This is still a great design result for Kia, and even if it is slightly marred with comparisons to the Honda. If I was being super critical, and I guess this is the idea of this blog, some elements are just not sensitive enough to the rest of the car. For example the edges of the A-pillar flowing to the hood are too sharp in comparison to the rest of the car and as previously mentioned the body side also lacks form. Overall the design is quite cool. The promising bold elements of the front fender lead me to expect good things to come out from other models of their range, even though there is nothing ground breaking about the design, but that isn’t what Kia’s are about…. yet.