Kia Stinger – car review: A handsome beast that's just as rewarding to drive

This poor man’s Audi is a rewarding experience

I can’t believe it’s not Audi: this Kia really does have the power to surprise (Photos Kia)

Time was when if you wanted to get your hands on a Korean sports saloon you couldn’t because: one, they didn’t make them; two, the nearest they got to them were big luxury sedans that looked like gargoyles on wheels. It was not a promising set of DNA.

Still, evolution can work some remarkable magic, and so it is that the process of natural selection, lavish investment, hard work, brains and the poaching of some of the best talent from the German automotive industry have propelled the Korean brands Hyundai and Kia (part of the same group but separately managed) into the premier league of carmakers. It’s been an amazing transformation, and it would be just snobby and churlish (even for the naturally snobbish and churlish like me) to deny such astonishing progress.

So the latest product of this process is the Kia Stinger, a ‘proper’ rakish rear-drive four door performance coupe, and a handsome beast it is too. I like to think of it as a poor man’s Audi A7 or, stretching the point, perhaps a Mercedes-Benz CLS-class, which is a good thing, by the way, because I am not a rich man.

Stay on target: the lane assist allows drivers to disconcertingly go hands free (Kia)

Anyway, evolution never ends but the Kia Stinger represents something to my mind close to perfection. Just glancing at it tells you why. Here we have a highly contemporary and well-proportioned elegant yet purposeful GT that would hardly shame a ‘prestige’ maker’s show stand. This has a lot to do with Peter Schreyer, the ex-Audi designer who helped create the TT and was recruited some years ago to boost Kia’s appeal in the notoriously picky European market. It worked over successive models, and with the Stinger I noticed how many people looked at it and did a double take, glancing over the car and then back to the badge on the bonnet. You could see what they were thinking – oh that’s a smart new Jaguar or BMW or Audi or Lexus maybe. Oh, it’s a Kia. How queer.

Handsome red devil: designers have outdone themselves with the sleek lines (Kia)

Of course, a substantial achievement as the sensuous styling is, the fact that the Stinger looks a lot like an Audi A7 is, of course, not enough, and the Korean brand knows it. The design team have done a superlative job of making the Stingers’s controls utterly intuitive and foolpoof. Within minutes of hopping in you know how everything works, and no need to go rummaging in the handbook.

The German brands seem to have driven themselves up some technological dead ends with dials and even pretend mice to control stuff such as the radio, sat nav and climate control. However, the Kia does it well through a mix of big, clear touch screens plus steering wheel controls. Indeed, I would suggest the user friendliness is peerless. One or two buttons are placed a bit out of the way, such as the one that makes sure you don’t wander out of lanes, but that’s a minor ergonomic gripe.

Sting in the tail: low fuel economy and high CO2 emissions mean it’s not hugely economical (Kia)

I was a little startled to discover just how laissez faire the Kia attitude to driver aids is. ‘Lane assist’ is an increasingly common feature on new cars of all makes, and basically means a car will read the road markings ahead and steer the vehicle for you, provided it can make them out. Thus, you can keep a very light touch on the wheel. But unlike any of these systems I’ve encountered before, the Kia allows you to go hands free (sort of – I didn’t go and sit in the back) for a disconcertingly long time, and the autonomous steering adjustments are also relatively dramatic.

Combine that with torrential rain at the legal speed limit and you start to feel like lane assist isn’t such a great innovation after all. Nothing untoward befell me, but it reminds one how something as inevitable as bad weather represents a very substantial challenge to the arrival of fully autonomous cars.

The spec

Price: from £32,025
Engine capacity: 2.0-litre petrol; 4-cylinder; 8-speed auto
Power output (bhp @ rpm): 244@6,200
Top speed (mph): 149
0-62 mph (seconds): 5.8
Fuel economy (mpg): 35.8
CO2 emissions (g/km): 181

Apart from that, the Kia was extremely easy to live with. If you want the power to go with the looks, you’d best opt for the flagship 3.3 litre V6, the fastest thing to come out of Korea since the last time Kim Jong-un lobbed a rocket at Japan. I made do with the four-cylinder two litre petrol version. This one will deliver some acceleration when you set it up in sport mode (as opposed to comfort, say), and it can be driven hard enough to persuade you not to disable the electronic stability control. Maybe on the track but not the public highway, eh?

You do pay a penalty for working a relatively small power unit hard – slightly disappointing fuel economy and CO2 emissions. That also feeds into a hefty tax rate with ‘benefits in kind’ for business buyers. Even given its remit as a grand tourer with some sporty pretensions, it’s not as economical to run as it should be, though it enjoys a value advantage over its more storied rivals. The diesels are better but suffer from a widespread public misconception about how clean they are. It’s a pity, in fact, that there’s no pure electric or hybrid option on the Stinger. The next evolutionary stage perhaps.

Do you see the light? The interior would benefit from a bit more illumination (kia)

The other drawbacks of the Kia can be quickly summarised. Unlike much of its obvious competitors, it has quite short service intervals of six months; some of the minor controls in the cabin, for example on the air vents, felt a bit low rent, and the interior was probably too dark and sombre, in the old-school German tradition – it could have done with some subtle mood lighting.

Against that, though, you have to weigh a heated steering wheel, superb sat nav and interactivity, a great sound system and DAB radio, generous comfortable seating and a certain rarity. A mere 1,800 or so will be sold in the UK this year, about the same number as a Bentley. Obviously Kia haven’t built a Bentley beater but, given their evolution, I’d not rule it out forever.