Kia Stinger

Kia just release new pictures about its new sport sedan called the Stinger. The point of this car is to be a BMW or Audi challenger. The design itself is very Audi-ish since the designer was formerly the chief designer in Audi. The car claims to have some serious performance with powerful 3.3  litre V6 turbo engine with well over 300hp. This is no doubt impressive coming from Kia when nearly all the cars in the past have been quite sedate and budget oriented cars.

Kia is obviously trying to shake the budget image of their brand and wants a piece of the sports sedan market dominated by BMW and Audi. It is an uphill battle since Kia was never known for it sporting intentions nor have they really gotten into any sort of serious motorsports with real commitment. Kia doesn't have the name pedigree in this respect but nothing ventured nothing gained. It is a positive move by Kia and if they don't start with the Stinger model, they will be forever be labelled as a sedate budget car from Korea.

BMW and Audi took decades and millions of dollars in motorsport investment to gain their reputation. Kia has a big hill to climb to even come close however, it can slowly chip away at BMW and Audi. With a good pricing structure, the Stinger could steal some sales from BMW and Audi. The key thing is that the Stinger must perform as well as it claims. Quite often when Korean car companies launch a car and make claims for performance figures it usually falls short. There have been many cases where a certain performance figure is printed on the brochure but when the car is driven or even dyno tested the tested figure is not even close to the printed figure. this is not good for the brand. BMW on the other hand usually under state their performance figures and that often allows the owner to have a nice surprise when the car is actually driven or dyno tested. For Koreans cars it is unknown if the difference in performance figures are due to transmission loss or something else. It would be good to see Kia live up to their performance claims so that the car is actually as good as claimed.

Kia and Hyundai has been making a lot of improvements lately and they have spared little expense in making their cars better. The Japanese car makers have a thing or two to worry about since Kia and Hyundai no long make rubbish cars. It is quite clear that Kia and Hyundai are willing to invest heavily in development and including all the technology they can muster into all their new models. It won't be long before they are competing on equal footing with the Japanese car makers. Right now the Japanese car makers still have an edge over the Koreans but the edge is only very slight.

Motorsports involvement do contribute a lot to the development of technology as well as the brand image. The cost of motorsport is well worth it in the long term. This is something the Koreans and the Chinese car makers need to really get into.