Stung: Kia Kills the Stinger

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

It's a sad day for fans of mid-luxury sports sedans/four-door coupes. And fans of the Kia Stinger. Or for people like yours truly, fans of both.


The Kia Stinger is officially dead. And Kia is sending it out with a special Tribute Edition.

Only 1,000 units will be built worldwide. The Tribute Edition will be based on the GT trim with the 3.3-liter twin-turbocharged V6 and offer buyers the choice of an Ascot Green or Moonscape matte gray paint. It will have 19-inch gloss-black wheels, a black trim finish, and black-painted brake calipers.

Inside, it will have Terracotta brown leather for the seats, steering wheel, and some trim bits to go along with a carbon-effect trim finish and unique badging. There will also be a numbered door-sill plate.

This news is shocking though not surprising since there's not much of a market for entry/mid-luxury sports sedans/four-door coupes. It's too bad, since the Stinger was a joy to drive.

That said, Kia will happily sell you an EV6 GT for $61K.

[Images: Kia]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Analoggrotto Analoggrotto on Dec 22, 2022

    This attempted to appeal to the more sensible end of the Dodge Charger crowd. And failed. They don't exist.

  • ToolGuy ToolGuy on Dec 23, 2022

    Kia Stinger (not the special edition) is on my short list of vehicles to consider purchasing used one of these days. Low sales volume means expensive parts means probably not, but it's on the list. (I know you are excited for me.)

  • GrumpyOldMan The "Junior" name was good enough for the German DKW in 1959-1963:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKW_Junior
  • Philip I love seeing these stories regarding concepts that I have vague memories of from collector magazines, books, etc (usually by the esteemed Richard Langworth who I credit for most of my car history knowledge!!!). On a tangent here, I remember reading Lee Iacocca's autobiography in the late 1980s, and being impressed, though on a second reading, my older and self realized why Henry Ford II must have found him irritating. He took credit for and boasted about everything successful being his alone, and sidestepped anything that was unsuccessful. Although a very interesting about some of the history of the US car industry from the 1950s through the 1980s, one needs to remind oneself of the subjective recounting in this book. Iacocca mentioned Henry II's motto "Never complain; never explain" which is basically the M.O. of the Royal Family, so few heard his side of the story. I first began to question Iacocca's rationale when he calls himself "The Father of the Mustang". He even said how so many people have taken credit for the Mustang that he would hate to be seen in public with the mother. To me, much of the Mustang's success needs to be credited to the DESIGNER Joe Oros. If the car did not have that iconic appearance, it wouldn't have become an icon. Of course accounting (making it affordable), marketing (identifying and understanding the car's market) and engineering (building a car from a Falcon base to meet the cost and marketing goals) were also instrumental, as well as Iacocca's leadership....but truth be told, I don't give him much credit at all. If he did it all, it would have looked as dowdy as a 1980s K-car. He simply did not grasp car style and design like a Bill Mitchell or John Delorean at GM. Hell, in the same book he claims credit for the Brougham era four-door Thunderbird with landau bars (ugh) and putting a "Rolls-Royce grille" on the Continental Mark III. Interesting ideas, but made the cars look chintzy, old-fashioned and pretentious. Dean Martin found them cool as "Matt Helm" in the late 1960s, but he was already well into middle age by then. It's hard not to laugh at these cartoon vehicles.
  • Dwford The real crime is not bringing this EV to the US (along with the Jeep Avenger EV)
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Another Hyunkia'sis? 🙈
  • SCE to AUX "Hyundai told us that perhaps he or she is a performance enthusiast who is EV hesitant."I'm not so sure. If you're 'EV hesitant', you're not going to jump into a $66k performance car for your first EV experience, especially with its compromised range. Unless this car is purchased as a weekend toy, which perhaps Hyundai is describing.Quite the opposite, I think this car is for a 2nd-time EV buyer (like me*) who understands what they're getting into. Even the Model 3 Performance is a less overt track star.*But since I have no interest in owning a performance car, this one wouldn't be for me. A heavily-discounted standard Ioniq 5 (or 6) would be fine.Tim - When you say the car is longer and wider, is that achieved with cladding changes, or metal (like the Raptor)?
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