Kia Stinger — long term review
Actually, as a compliment, it wasn’t too back-handed. The guy really did like the car. I was parking and he walking in a London W1 street where Bentleys, Porsches and Maseratis are often jammed bumper-to-bumper.
He’s not the only one. People have twisted heads and grinned as it drove by, tapped on the window as it waited at red lights. It’s had a load of “nice car” comments, mostly from people I’ve never met, and not just from my neighbours who always say “nice car” if I’m in a nice car. If this thing had social accounts, it’d be humming with likes and upvotes.
I happen to think the BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe, the direct opposition to this Kia, is a great-looking car too. But no one comments on the look of a BMW (unless an i8) to a BMW driver.
This might in part be because people think the Stinger is even more striking than the 4 Series, and doubtless too there’s an element of disarming surprise when they see the socking great KIA letters in chrome on the nose. I always have reservations about imputing a state of mind, but I suspect another factor is simply that we Brits do love an underdog. And don’t mind saying so.
So the first month of driving has proved that in its primary mission the Stinger is absolutely smashing. It’s a superb halo car for Kia.
The V6 Stinger will sell in biggish numbers in the US, but over here it’ll shift only in the handfuls. Even BMW and Mercedes can’t sell six-cylinder petrol cars here; they do their numbers with four-cylinder diesels. But the Stinger’s diesel version is also a small seller because it’s lousily uncompetitive on fuel and CO2. Thus building the Stinger for Europe can’t be much of a money-maker directly for Kia.
But oh what good it’s doing for the brand as a whole. If you were considering, say, a Sportage or the new Proceed, imagine how the Stinger’s existence legitimises your choice. Social commentators will before long call Kia a badge worth wearing, and an underdog no longer.
The new Kia Stinger: pure driving sensation
The empty, twisting roads of the Scottish Highlands are the perfect setting for a dream drive. But that’s just one element: you also need the right car. Enter the new Kia Stinger, the 3.3 litre, twin-turbo V6-engined luxury sports GT: more than capable of making the most of any road. You can see what happened right now by watching the video above.
The high-performance Kia Stinger is the creation of Albert Biermann — the company’s head of vehicle test and performance development. Below he shares his thoughts for the Stinger as it finally meets the world.
The Stinger is an exciting departure for KIA — when was the idea for the car originally conceived?
This question was the foundation for a years-long journey that began when the GT concept was first unveiled at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show. Although every Kia design study has a purpose, the GT concept was something considered by many outside the company as little more than a dream for a brand known for producing mass-market transportation rooted in value. But the GT ignited embers of passion that sparked a fire within the organization and over the next five years that fire would grow beyond fantasy and morph into reality.
How would you describe the philosophy behind the car?
We want enthusiastic drivers to be able to enjoy the thrill of driving their Stinger in all conditions without compromising on safety and comfort even on long and challenging drives — in short: the legendary GT driving experience. We are confident that the Stinger will deliver on our promise of the true GT experience, in appearance and also driving.
Are there any cars from the past that were the inspiration behind the KIA Stinger?
Our chief design officer, Peter Schreyer, and our chief designer in Europe, Gregory Guillaume, were inspired by the iconic 1970s «gran turismo», or GT, cars that whisked passengers from Paris to the south of France in effortless style and at high speed.
How would you describe the motoring niche that the KIA Stinger operates in?
The Stinger is not just another luxury sedan with a very powerful engine. Basically, it is a rear-drive, five-passenger fastback sports sedan but almost on a high-performance level and with a very smart packaging concept. The mission of our Kia Stinger is to become an everyday dream car, combining power, practicality and extremely appealing styling for long-distance GT driving. Confidently, we want to make this car the most exciting and thrilling Kia machine ever. Yes, the Kia Stinger is a whole different animal. I believe the Kia Stinger has the potential to be a one-of-a-kind and game-changing new frontier in the markets.
The car was launched and tested at the famous Nurburgring in Germany — what were the reasons behind that? The Nordschleife has 73 corners and a 300-metre elevation change in the course of one lap. Engineers are able to test cars under hard acceleration and braking, heavy cornering, and at high speeds. It emulates the full working life of a vehicle in just 10,000 km — this high-intensity testing makes the Nürburgring the ideal place to validate a car’s quality and reliability. For the Stinger, it also provides us with a unique environment to test ride and handling, engine and overall performance on the most challenging race track in the world.
Kia Stinger review
The point of the Kia Stinger is to make you notice it. So, if you’re reading this, job done. Kia itself admitted when this car was launched back in 2017 that it was never designed or intended to sell in big numbers. It didn’t have a hope of challenging the BMW 3 Series and 4 Series Gran Coupe, the Mercedes C-Class or Audi A4 and A5. So, what was the point? Well, it does your brand no harm at all to have a flagship, especially when that flagship is a handsome, well-proportioned fastback saloon.
Plus, when that good-looking, coupe-ish five-door also drives in an entertaining fashion, it sprinkles well-engineered fairy dust over the rest of the range. Basically, the Stinger exists because it makes you want to be in the Kia club more than a Sportage or a Sorento does.
Is the Stinger an out-and-out sports saloon?
It is now. Sort of. When the car was launched Kia would sell you sensible versions: there was a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol and a 2.2-litre turbodiesel which sounded rougher than Macy Gray blowing her nose into coarse sandpaper. Neither of these lower-CO2 options realistically had much chance of challenging the company car hegemony, so Kia’s now ditched the four-pot Stingers and made it a single-model range, complete with a meaty V6.
So, no, there’s no hybrid version. No electric-only range. Just a hefty 3.3-litre turbocharged V6 punting out 365bhp and 376lb ft at the rear wheels only. In left-hand drive markets you can spec all-wheel drive for your Stinger, but Brits only get rear-drive, which means this old-school swift saloon can have some good old-fashioned fun.
What else has changed through the Stinger’s life?
For 2022, the car got a mild facelift. Given how few of these things actually get sold, it’s highly unlikely you’ll see two next to each other to compare.
To save you the trouble, later Stingers are distinguished by new LED rear lights with a full-width bar between them, and ‘chequered flag’ inspired indicators. There’s also a fiddlier new design of 19-inch rim, some green paint, and inside, an upgraded 10.25-inch touchscreen. Oh, and 64 colours of ambient lighting.
If that sounds like Kia isn’t really bothering much with the Stinger, then yes, you’re probably right. This is a car the company only expected to shift 1,500 in the UK per year, at best. And with Kia’s current push to go hybrid across the range, the Stinger is a bit of an outlier, and a CO2 menace. But it’s also a car of character and individuality, and one we have a soft spot for at Top Gear. Read the full long term Kia Stinger review by clicking these blue words.
Our choice from the range
What’s the verdict?
“ Feels behind the times, but massive value and big sense of humour means we like this turbo V6 longboi ”
If you ever bring up the Kia Stinger in a conversation and explain what it is, two things will happen. Firstly, people will roll around laughing that an actual real-life car company called one of its models ‘Stinger’. Then, they’ll all say the same thing: “Ooh, that’d be a good buy second-hand.” Once depreciation has done its thing – as it does for all big barges – then this big friendly V6 canal boat will be a conspicuous and satisfying bargain. Thing is, that rather depends on people buying them new in the first place. For some, the badge will put them off. Shame. For others, it’ll be the sense of the car being dated within its own lifetime. Fair enough. But if you can afford the fuel costs and have the space – and imagination – to avoid the German hegemony, the Stinger is an interesting choice that might just make you smile more often than its more premium rivals. It’s a car that proved Kia has come full circle, from whitegood transport to a maker of cars desirable in their own right.
Kia Stinger review
It would’ve been easy for Kia to just lob a Sorento or Sportage dashboard in here. Saves time, money, and who’s going to notice, apart from, well, us? But no, they decided to go bespoke, and we appreciate the effort. You get a great slab of soft-touch leatherette dashboard with three aerospace-ish air vents, and it looks distinctive. Cool, even. What lets the Stinger down is a deluge of plastic switchgear sprayed silver in an attempt to be passed off as real metal, which it obviously isn’t. Still, at least it’s not been covered in smeary ‘piano black’ plastic.
What’s new for the facelift?
Atop the dash is a new 10.25-inch touchscreen, replacing the old 8.0-inch unit with its thick bezel. The interface isn’t the swiftest to respond and the main menus are flawed by their use of the same colour for all the icons, so it’s tricky to use on the move especially as it’s a stretch to reach. On the up side, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are built in, so you can ditch the Kia native interface most of the time, especially when you need to use the sat-nav.
It’d be cruel to call the cabin dated when so much of it is actually simpler, easier and safer to use than all the new touch-sensitive nonsense being used by Audi, BMW and Mercedes to systematically destroy their reputations for quality. The Stinger’s climate control knobs and buttons don’t feel expensive. The physical dials bookending a seven-inch driver display are not coo-out-loud delightful. But they are easy to view, use and won’t go wrong, we’d wager.
Is it practical?
Climb into the rear and so long as the driver hasn’t taken full advantage of the seat’s lowliness there’s some footroom, plus decent legroom and more headroom than you’d expect given the sweeping silhouette. The boot’s 406 litres can be expanded to 1,114 litres by pulling the handle that flips the rear backrests forwards, but they don’t lie flat, as is usual in this class.
Rear visibility is a little pinched by the raked rear screen, but to help with avoiding cyclists and any blind-spot-invaders, the Stinger now has the same side camera trick as the Ioniq 5, so whenever you activate the indicators, the driver display screen shows a view down the car’s flanks, to just aid those trickier manoeuvres. At last, a case of technology designed to make a car safer actually doing so, instead of just being a pain. Speaking of which, the Stinger’s horribly overactive self-steering aid is easily deactivated with a long press of the lane-keep assist button under the driver’s air vent.