The Kia Forte Koup, passionately known as the Cerato Koup in SA, was unveiled at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show and did make a mark for itself.

The Cerato Koup is has been manufactured by Kia Motors since mid-2008 to replace the Cerato. It is found available in two-door coupe, four-door sedan and five-door hatchback variants. It is not available in Europe, because the similar sized Kia Cee'd is offered on the market, save for Russia, where the Cee'd and the Forte are both on the market. In some markets the Forte is marketed as the Kia Cerato replacing its predecessor of the same name. In Singapore, the name Kia Cerato Forte is used, while Naza in Malaysia offers the car as the Naza Forte.

Manufactured out of the ingenuity of the Korean car in the quest for finding own niche in the car market and filling it, the Cerato Koup does justice as a stand-alone car, non-comparable in its product line.

The Cerato Koup is available with a 2,0-litre inline 4-cylinder petrol engine, producing 114 kW and 194 N.m of torque. In United States, the SX model is powered by a 2,4-litre engine producing 127 kW and 227 N.m torque.

It is pretty car to look at, lower, shorter and lighter than the four-door Kia Cerato sedan, the two-door Kia Cerato Koup is Kia’s first-ever design in the sports segment for the Australian market.

Despite its sporty appearance and lower roofline, the 4.48-metre long Koup has a long wheelbase of 2650 mm, and offers great passenger and luggage space, highly competitive levels of equipment and state-of-the-art active and passive safety.

The Koup is available with a 2.0-litre petrol engine with Kia’s five-speed manual transmission as standard or an optional four-speed automatic transmission, coming at an additional cost to the overall price. In the Unites States, it also comes with a 2.4-litre engine and a six-speed manual engine, but that powertrain is engineered only for left-hand-drive.

The Koup range is not densely populated, and coming at a favorable price as it does, it is a stand-alone brand.

Attention in making the Koup was on eight key areas namely; aggressive styling; strong performance; fun-to-drive steering, handling and ride balance; good fuel economy; great cabin comfort; enhanced overall safety; and the introduction of new technologies.

The Koup has revised steering & suspension. It possesses little touches such as an aggressive bumper with large sections of black mesh at the front and the twin exhaust pipes at the rear. It also has alloy wheels that give it a sleek appearance.

It has sporty touches that include red stitching on the charcoal-colored front seats, set nice & low, plus shiny alloy pedals. It has exciting red back-lighting in the instrument cluster, almost romantic. It has generous back space that can fit loads of luggage. The rear seats fold down easily with boot latches to create the loads of space for carrying luggage.

The Koup is definitely a combination of economy and beauty. With enhanced slick features and light weight, but reasonable torque and power, one can’t be disappointed by what it offers.