Fast and comfortable: the Kia Stinger GT
My diary is as heavy as a sodden bath towel. It’s like everyone in my entire address book has suddenly decided to host a party, and I’m not talking about the sort of party where you sit down with a few friends and a bottle of wine. I’m talking about the sort of monster where you arrive at eight and then it’s Tuesday.
We are heading not for the new normal, but a whole new kind of crazy. Because the next few months will make the Swinging Sixties look like a bridge evening in Devon. And hopefully, that will be that for efforts to make us all green and vegan and gender-neutral.
Sure, it’s easy to imagine, when you’re staring out of your kitchen window, that you want to spend the rest of your life listening to the birdsong and eating kale. But you don’t. What you actually want is to go to the Greek islands to get wasted and laid. I only hope that shortly after we all realise this and do an abrupt volte-face, Boris Johnson does one too and halts his ludicrous plan to ban from sale all cars that run on petrol and diesel engines by 2030.
The looming ban on proper cars is starting to have an effect, but in the mean-time we have the latest Kia Stinger GT. OK, you don’t want to spend $63,000 on a Kia; if you want to blow that kind of cash on a fast, rear-wheel-drive sporting saloon, you’d rather have an Audi Sportback or a BMW 4 series. I get that. I would too. Especially as the Kia is quite thirsty and produces more emissions than a harbour full of cruise liners. So, it won’t be cheap to run. As a driving machine, though, and as a place to sit, I’ve got to confess I like it a lot. I especially like the way it played an operatic tune every time I opened the door. It felt like I was walking into a chat show, or coming down the stairs at an awards ceremony.
The Stinger, however, makes other electronic noises that are less pleasant. It was especially vociferous every time I crawled into the footwell to find and hold down the button that turns off the lane departure feature. Because if there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s cars telling me which side of the road to drive on.
But anyway, despite the thirst, and the emissions, and a steering wheel that has a mind of its own, and the bonging, and the awkward rear styling that I haven’t mentioned yet, and the price, it is – as I may have mentioned – a good car.
The gearbox isn’t terribly speedy. When you try to shift manually it can be a bit dim-witted, like it has to remind itself what its job is every time you move the gear lever. The Stinger is also a surprisingly heavy car, at 1.8 tonnes, which makes the problem worse. But these are only minor things.
There are other, more important things, like the cabin, which is well equipped and nicely finished. I’m not sure about having the acronym for “killed in action” in the centre of the steering wheel – it’s a bit unnerving – but as a place to be it’s as good as a Lexus. It’s properly comfortable as well. And I don’t just mean “comfortable for a fast, rear-wheel-drive sports saloon”.
Maybe that’s a result of its weight – it simply irons out bumps in the road before they have a chance to make themselves felt. The Stinger wouldn’t be quite so fast if it was as fat as the figures suggest. There’s a meatiness to the way it sets off when you prod the throttle, a sense that the turbos and the big V6 are working in tandem to generate a huge hidden force.
There’s no point fiddling around with the driver modes – they make almost no difference. Instead, just leave it in Sport and have a laugh. Feel the way a nicely balanced, front-engined, rear-wheel-drive car can be. Revel in what makes a car a car. Enjoy the tingles and the fizzes and the way a gearchange alters even the sound. And know that no one is going to judge you because, hey, it’s just a Kia.
Kia will sell only a few hundred Stingers in Britain, but it will sell plenty in less “socially aware” countries in less “developed” parts of the world such as Africa and South-East Asia. This car will introduce thousands to the idea of what a car can be. Which means the car as an entity may well survive Europe’s woke-led war with it. For that alone we should salute it.
ENGINE: 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 (274kW/510Nm). Average fuel 10.2 litres per 100km
TRANSMISSION: 8-speed automatic rear-wheel-drive
PRICE: From $63,760
RATING (out of 5): 3.5
