Kia Hints More Stinger Variants Could Be Coming

The Kia Stinger is quickly becoming one of the darlings of the sport sedan market, which is saying a lot considering the tough competition it’s up against. It’s a rear-wheel-drive car nobody asked Kia to build that ended up being a stylish, fun, competitive sport sedan shattering Kia’s reputation of just being a brand of cheap little cars.

As of this writing, the Kia Stinger is available in the base 2.0L trim, the mid-range Premium trim, and three different forms of the Stinger GT with varying degrees of equipment which all come with a venerable 3.3-liter twin-turbo V6 engine. According to Kia North America product planner Orth Hendrick in an interview with AutoGuide, that selection is about to expand.

“We’re looking at it (different Stinger variants),” Hendrick told AutoGuide. “The reaction has been phenomenal to (the Stinger). We’re doing great, we have a very high mix of buyers, a lot coming from Optima, so we’re looking to see if we can grow that. And I think there might be other opportunities down the road. It’s a little early yet, we just got the car on the market, and we still have a handful of dealers who have never sold one yet. We’ll probably wait for a while to get some data in and see what the reaction will be, how people feel about the brand, and then we’ll probably build (the Stinger lineup) out from there.”

We reached out to Kia Motors America to see if we could get any more details about what might be in store for the future of the Stinger. “Since the Stinger launched late last year, we did do a limited production run of Yellow vehicles to commemorate the launch,” said a Kia representative in an email to The Drive. “And just a few weeks ago we showed the Stinger Atlantica to media.” 

The lovely Stinger GT Atlantica comes with some extra tech goodies like wireless charging and heated rear seats along with a gorgeous Deep Chroma Blue paint job and Espresso Brown Nappa leather seats, which are exclusive to the Atlantica. Only 500 examples will be built.

“As one of the newest vehicles in the Kia lineup and a halo for the brand, Stinger will continue to be an important part KMA’s [Kia Motors America] product cadence,” said a Kia representative to The Drive. Could a more luxury-oriented V6 model be in the works? Maybe some new appearance packages? It’s hard to say, but we’re looking forward to seeing whatever Kia has planned for the Stinger.