A halo car is a car that has a specific purpose that's so much bigger than just selling. It’s supposed to show to the world what a carmaker is capable of when given a bigger budget to play with. For Toyota, the last great halo car was arguably the Supra from the 90s. For Kia, their halo car, the 2018 Stinger GT-S, is probably set for the legendary aura that now surrounds the Mk3 twin-turbo Supra.
For one, the Stinger is also twin-turbocharged but that has little to do with why it’s so great. It also has 375hp and 510nm of torque and goes from 0-62mph in 4.7 seconds but the numbers mean nothing when the whole car is so characterful.
One of the main reasons why the Stinger is sublime to drive is the involvement of a certain Mr. Albert Biermann of BMW M Division fame. He and his team of engineers seem to be my kind of people because they insisted that the Stinger had a mode in which it could be completely unshackled from the stability and traction control systems - something no Kia had had before. I reckon Albert drove it only in that mode.
You engage it by flicking the drive-mode selector into Sport+ mode then holding a button on the central console for several seconds. You then get your left foot on the brake and right one on the gas. Let the revs build and wait for a message “Launch mode engaged!”.
By that point, the lights have changed several times and whomever you wanted to race is long gone, but lift your left foot and all hell breaks loose. Despite the rear-wheel drive, the Stinger digs in hard shooting you up to about 35mph. At this point, you realise that in this hardcore drive mode, the 8-speed automatic gearbox won’t ever change gear for you and you have to do it via the paddles mounted behind the steering wheel. At the same instant you realise that, you hit the rev limiter and the whole car dips down along your smile. You then flick the drive mode back to Smart, which juggles between Eco, Comfort and Sport and carry on with your journey with an embarrassed face.
That isn’t to say the Stinger is not an absolute joy to drive. The simple fact is that I felt comfortable and familiar with the car after a mere few hours behind the wheel. There are few cars that feel as welcoming as the Stinger and most are far more expensive than it’s £40,000 price.
What you see is also what you’ll get - everything in these pictures is standard and you only need to pick the paint. Heated and ventilated leather-upholstered seats are standard and so is a 15-speaker Harman Kardon stereo that's better than the Burmester in the Mercedes E-Class. To my ears at least.
However, the main reason I think this will become a legendary car for Kia is that it’s brimming with character. At a time of platform-shared cookie-cutter German cars seemingly thought of by machines, the Stinger feels like a car conceived by people who are really into cars and have finally sold enough Picantos and Sorentos to allow themselves some fun with a car. Kia needs to sell around 1,750 Stingers in the UK in order to guarantee we will see more passionate cars from the Korean automaker. So, if you have the available funds, please go and buy one so I can then buy it used in about 10 years. Or keep it and wait 20 years to sell it when it has achieved legendary status.
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