Kia’s Stinger GT delivers power, style … and affordability
CASEY WILLIAMS | Auto Reviewer
autocasey@aol.com
Four-door coupes are all the rage among Europe’s luxury automakers. Think about the Mercedes-Benz CLS, Audi A5 Sportback, and Aston Martin Rapide. But dang those cars are expensive. What if you could buy a German-designed four-door coupe with a world-class chassis and powertrain for a fraction of the price — kind of a working class Panamera? Kia has the Stinger GT.
Lending credence to the Stinger’s German persona are the facts it was designed in Kia’s Frankfurt studio under Gregory Guillaume and Peter Schreyer, former style wizard at Audi. It looks like a Porsche Panamera and Dodge Charger consummated their relationship, but the Stinger has better proportions than either. It’s low, wide and exotic with a sweeping rear roofline. It glistens with LED headlights while 19-in. alloys fill the fenders. There’s even a little Fisker Karma in the taillamps. I found most pokey drivers didn’t even put up a fuss when they saw that angry mug in their rearview mirror and just slid right over.
It was one of those weekends where I just want to load up the family and enjoy a long drive. Fortunately, four people ride pretty comfortably in the low-slung cabin and all of our gear easily fit beneath the power hatch. My 4-year-old princess, who thinks she must take every toy she owns, was not denied her luxuries. Her dads enjoyed heated and cooled leather seats, heated steering wheel, power sunroof, and Harman Kardon audio. The dark red leather and metallic accents were especially fetching. My job was made easier via the heads-up display and safety features like adaptive cruise, forward collision warning/mitigation, lane keep assist, blind spot warning and rear cross path detection.
Throttle down and move out. Our GT had plenty under the hood: A 3.3-liter twin-turbo V6 kicking out 365 horsepower and 376 lb.-ft. of torque — all routed to the torque-vectoring all-wheel-drive system through an 8-speed automatic transmission. Properly driven, it will click 0–60 mph in 4.7 seconds. By comparison, a Panamera V6 RWD does it in 5.4 seconds; Audi’s A5 Sportback takes 5.7s. It’s a potent machine by most measures. Partly thanks to auto stop/start, which can be pressed off, fuel economy rates 19/25-MPG city/highway.
Holding all of this together is a sported out version of the Genesis G80 chassis that was conjured from day one as a sport sedan. An electronic suspension with continuous damping allows drivers to twist a dial for different driving modes: Eco, Smart, Comfort, Sport and Custom. Each varies the suspension firmness, steering weight and throttle response from comfortable to corner-carving exuberant. Brembo disc brakes deploy the parachutes. The car feels suave in all modes, but despite all of the hoopla over the chassis being sussed out on Germany’s famed Nurburgring, there’s not much difference between Comfort and Sport and it doesn’t feel as planted as it could when disturbed in flight. A Porsche, it is not.
But the Stinger offers something no Porsche can: A base price of just $31,900. You can’t even buy a tiny Mercedes CLA for that. Add on all of our car’s accoutrement and powertrain upgrades to see a sticker of $52,300. That may seem lofty for a Kia, but the car more than earns the price. It’s sexy, sassy and ready to kick some butt