Elegant Grand Touring and enough performance to get the heart beating faster
So the Kia Stinger – the fastest Kia production car they have built.
The 2 litre four cylinder turbo engine has 182 Kw and 353 Nm of torque reaching its peak at just 1,400 rpm
The twin turbo 3.3 litre V6 has 272 Kw and a very impressive 510 Nm of torque from a mere 1,300.
Both are matched to an 8 speed automatic gear box
The way to tell from the outside if you have the bigger engine is that it has Brembo brakes with bright red calipers.
Prices in Australia start at $46,000 for the base four cylinder and go up to $60,000 for the top spec V6. To these prices you have to add on road costs.
But for all its performance they say they were inspired in the design by the elegance of the 1970s Grand tourers. They mentioned Maserati whose four door quadraporte in the 60s was distinctive but in the 70s was a bit more boxie. Perhaps they were remembering the two door Ghibli of the time.
I love the look of the car from rear three-quarter angle . It has elegance along the lines of a Jaguar sedan.
From the front it has the common Kia Bow Tie grille.
From the side with a longish nose on a four door car it has a bit of Porsche Panamera about it although the rear is different. Perhaps more like the modern Maserati Quadraporte.
It has a high waist line which makes the back a little bulky and reduces vision through the rear window.
There are distinctive touches such as the extension of the reflector from the back, brake light to the side. It’s not bad although on the bright yellow model it does get a bit Liquorish all-sort for my liking.
The high waist line means that when you get into it you feel like you are sitting down low like a sports car.
The dash board is more horizontal than vertical adding to the sporty feel. There is a 7 inch screen in the base model and 8 inch in the other specs.
It will be classified as a large car in Australia. You can adjust the front seats well back for plenty of room which immediately compromises the rear seat passengers which overall is not quite as much as a family might like.
Good sound system and a better one for the top of the range with may more speakers including a sub-woofer under the seat.
The car is a lift back and the rear seats fold down giving a smidgen over 1,100 litres of space.
A range of colours and I love the fact that metallic paint colours don’t cost you any more, although the two pearlesent colours, only available in the top models, are an extra $695.
Good safety features Automatice Egency Braking, lane keeping assist, blind spot monitoring for all the variations except the base version. Shouldn’t they be on all models? Especially if you are going to sell cars to fleets.
And if you get the top of the range GT-Line in the four Cylinder and the GT for the V6 you get things like Head up display, wireless phone charger and 360 degree camera.
One of the main reasons Kia is storming up the sales chart is that it has a 7 year warranty, and 7 year cut price servicing and road side assist.
Kia’s recent growth has been based on its traditional models. But the Stinger is opening new opportunities as Chief Operating Officer Damian Meredith notes:
And as I said before I’m growing the volume of the businesses is great and it’s exciting but if I can grow the brand with that volume that adds double to the excitement and double to the pleasure. So we’ve been given a great opportunity with stinger. And we believe that can change the whole perception of what and how people think of Korea in Australia. So I’m very excited.
The full interview with Damien, including how his early youthful experiences are reflected in this car is available on our web site.
We have tested the Stinger on the race track and in Grand touring conditions through the country side. When we get to the end of the embargo from Kia we will talk about the performance some more.
