2018 Kia Stinger

“Jenny, ich liebe dich!” The giant scrawl of graffiti flashed past the straining Kia Stinger on a wall somewhere around the Metzgesfeld bit of the Nürburgring Nordschleife, part of the endless spaghetti of scribble that decorates every inch of this crazy track. Jenny, wherever you are, we sure hope you appreciate the trouble your homeboy went to.

Like Jenny’s mensch, the Kia Stinger is a little ballsy, from the cartoonish name to the swagger in its styling to the hatchback body to the rear-drive platform. So is the market mission, which seems such a stark disconnect from the cheap-and-chipper Kia defined by its runaway best-seller, the Soul. Likely to sell for $30,000 to $40,000 (we’re extrapolating, based on hints dropped by the factory reps), the Stinger takes Kia into new realms dominated by serious players such as the Audi A4 and the BMW 3-series.

What is Kia offering? A big car in its class, for starters, the Stinger’s 114.4-inch wheelbase being almost four inches longer than that of a 3-series and just 1.7 inches shorter than a Porsche Panamera’s. The back seat has cross-your-legs room, but the factory-stated curb weights come in a little high, ranging from about 3650 pounds for a base 2.0-liter to 3900 for the loaded all-wheel-drive version.

This Kia is also daring people to be different, with a hatchback body and seats that are hailed as lower than the competition’s (for better handling, of course). Australian journalists who were along on the event told us that their nation is hotly anticipating the Stinger, which is seen as picking up the thread of the late Ford Falcon and the fading Holden Commodore, both large, rear-drive sedans.

Well, outside of that small, strange market, the Stinger will be greeted mainly as an amusing anomaly from an unexpected source. Chief designer Gregory Guillaume told us that the Stinger’s styling inspiration was the grand GTs he saw as a boy bombing down the Autoroute du Soleil to the south of France, especially the Maserati Ghibli. You have to squint—really squint—to see it, but okay. Such dreaminess is what happens when Koreans go out and hire Europeans and give them free hand to design and develop the cars.

This and the Nürburgring, because besides Guillaume, who Kia pinched from Volkswagen in 2005, the Hyundai Motor Group also in late 2014 lured Albert Biermann away from what must be one of the best gigs in the industry, running BMW’s M GmbH. Biermann says his first job at Kia became to “try to match the dynamic experience with the emotional appearance” of the Stinger.

Kia was so hot to show off the fruits of its European HR initiatives that it invited journalists to the ’Ring to sample the sportiest Stinger, the twin-turbocharged GT, on the same 12.9-mile Nordschleife where engineers did some of the development work. The only problem: We got just three laps, two in a rear-drive Stinger and one lap in an all-wheel-drive model, all behind a lead car driven at 10-10ths from the go signal. Which is akin to being asked to make intelligent comments about a car’s ride and handling after spending 34 minutes with it underwater.

What we can say is that the Stinger GT, which trades the base 255-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four for a twin-turbo 3.3-liter V-6 making 365 horsepower, feels like a car built by people who like cars, and it is not a complete mess when confronted with a track. Quite the opposite, in fact. Considering this is a Kia—whose previous rear-drive sedan was the K900—this is big news.

Biermann and his boys did their best to shrink the big Stinger at speed, laboring over bushing choices to give it lively, reactive steering and, on the 19-inch wheels with their standard Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tires, tenacious grip. Blessed with a stiff structure, the Stinger likes to turn, and it rewards your decision to take it to a German megatrack with precise path control and neutral handling that pushes into understeer none too early.

Well, certainly for the rear-drive Stinger, which can be steered with the throttle through its mechanically locking limited-slip differential and will, we’re assured, make a fabulous drift car once the electronic stability control is switched off. We were admonished not to turn it off—and weren’t even told that there is a Sport setting if you push the off button once. Thus, all impressions were in Comfort or Sport mode, where the ESC, surprisingly, mostly stays out of your face anyway.

The all-wheel driver is a hair softer and more prone to understeer, although the torque-transfer system is biased toward rear-drive. Consider the front wheels more of an assist axle for all-weather driving, which is exactly as it should be.

The 3.3-liter engine—also seen in the Genesis G90, the G80 Sport, and the upcoming G70, which will share the Stinger’s platform but with a shorter wheelbase and different styling—serves up the sauce with an eager pull and a baritone burble. The only complaint we had with the eight-speed automatic and its three overdrive ratios was an unwillingness at times to respond to the paddles in manual mode. Considering that the Stinger doesn’t go on sale in the United States until December, there’s time to work out the software bugs.

With large, relatively inexpensive rear-drive sedans in short supply—and the Dodge Charger nearing the end of a very long life—the Stinger promises to be a satisfying niche filler from the most unlikely of sources. We eagerly await more time in it and a chance to drive it at normal speeds.

Specifications >

VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, rear- or all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door hatchback

ESTIMATED BASE PRICE: $30,000–$40,000

ENGINE TYPES: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 2.0-liter inline-4, 255 hp, 260 lb-ft; twin-turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 24-valve 3.3-liter V-6, 365 hp, 376 lb-ft

TRANSMISSION: 8-speed automatic with manual shifting mode

DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 114.4 in
Length: 190.2 in
Width: 73.6 in Height: 55.1 in
Passenger volume: 98 cu ft
Curb weight (C/D est): 3650–3900 lb

PERFORMANCE (C/D EST):
Zero to 60 mph: 4.7–6.0 sec
Zero to 100 mph: 13.3–14.9 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 13.5–15.0 sec
Top speed: 130–167 mph

FUEL ECONOMY (C/D EST):
EPA combined/city/highway: 20–24/17–21/24–30 mpg