The Kia Stinger Is Getting Some Solid Upgrades
Thankfully, the handsome sports sedan ain’t dead yet.
Three years after first introducing the Stinger, Kia is giving its long-legged four-door its regularly scheduled mid-cycle refresh. While this facelift naturally comes with the usual, mild cosmetic tweaks that casual observers may or may not notice, Kia says the revised Stinger will also receive new engine choices. What those engine choices shall be, however, will be announced at a later date.
As for the changes we can see right now, the reworked Kia Stinger features new headlights that appear darker when turned off as well as fresh taillights that now use LED turn signals that resemble checkered flags. The car rocks a pair of new wheel designs measuring 18 or 19 inches presumably depending on trim while a more aggressive rear diffuser and exhaust package are now available with the upmarket engine. In our eyes, the Kia Stinger was already a pretty good looking car and this light styling refresh was clearly done in the spirit of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Stepping inside, the Stinger's overall interior design also goes mostly unchanged but Kia has upgraded it with nicer materials including metallic trim gracing the bottom of the steering wheel and lining the outside of the instrument cluster. Optionally, contrast stitching can be had on the dash and door cards while the center console can be clad with either aluminum or carbon fiber. New mood lighting bathes this Kia's cabin in 64 different colors of the owner's choosing.
More functionally, the infotainment display is now 10.25 inches big (up from the seven or eight-inch slabs in the current Stinger) and sports a bezel that's a lot less...Fisher Price. Oh, and its rearview mirror is now frameless.
This slightly new and slightly improved Kia Stinger will go on sale in its home country of South Korea in the third quarter of 2020 before coming to other markets "later." Kia also teases a "new powertrain line-up and technologies" that'll presumably be detailed, y'know, "later."
While nothing is official just yet, Car and Driver predicts the updated Stinger's powertrain options to consist of the 2.5-liter turbo-four and 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 found in the new Genesis G80, which frankly sound like pretty safe bets. In the Genesis, the former engine makes 300 horsepower while the latter is good for 375. These would represent a decent bump from the current Stinger which comes with either 255 or 365 ponies.
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