Rufus
1000 Posts Club!
Apparently I'm not the only one who sees musclecar DNA in the Stinger...
You might not think it from the pictures—I certainly didn't at first—but the Kia Stinger GT is a damn fine-looking car. Over the course of a four-hour drive, I got three lingering glances from pedestrians and other drivers alike, and one very enthusiastic thumbs-up from a woman crossing the street. Granted, it was on the Deathrace 2000 course of a road beneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, so she may have simply been glad that I stopped at the red instead of swerving towards her and mashing the gas, but I'm fairly certain she was reacting to the sleek chunk of Korean-sourced sheetmetal stopped in front of her.
Not that most people would assume this car hails from South Korea. If anything, the Stinger looks vaguely European, a cross-pollination of Continental design cues. The front end is vaguely French in its appealing oddness; the contrasting vertical and horizontal surfaces and lines that seem slapdash and disjointed in images meld together into something greater than the sum of its parts—still alien, but less disconcerting and more exotic. Think Captain Kirk's green-skinned Orion women, instead of the reptilian Gorn. The rear end is more Italian, bringing to mind the old Maserati 3200 coupe, or even some indeterminate Alfa Romeo. (Certainly helping bolster the Stinger GT's Italian vibe and its sex appeal alike: the f**k-me red shade sprayed over my test car, a Tawny Kitaen-lipstick crimson that looks like it was peeled straight off an '87 Testarossa.)
So if Kia's goal with the Stinger GT was to add some pizzazz to its U.S. lineup, it certainly succeeded. And as our own Lawrence Ulrich has repeatedly affirmed, the car's performance is more than able to cash the check its looks write. But it's one thing to test out a new car on the carefully-planned roads and closed-off tracks of a manufacturer's launch event; it's another thing altogether to throw it through the real-world blend of soul-crushing traffic, rough roads, and the occasional bout of chilly weather. Read more: 2018 Kia Stinger GT V-6 Review: Korea Builds a Modern-Day Four-Door Muscle Car
You might not think it from the pictures—I certainly didn't at first—but the Kia Stinger GT is a damn fine-looking car. Over the course of a four-hour drive, I got three lingering glances from pedestrians and other drivers alike, and one very enthusiastic thumbs-up from a woman crossing the street. Granted, it was on the Deathrace 2000 course of a road beneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, so she may have simply been glad that I stopped at the red instead of swerving towards her and mashing the gas, but I'm fairly certain she was reacting to the sleek chunk of Korean-sourced sheetmetal stopped in front of her.
Not that most people would assume this car hails from South Korea. If anything, the Stinger looks vaguely European, a cross-pollination of Continental design cues. The front end is vaguely French in its appealing oddness; the contrasting vertical and horizontal surfaces and lines that seem slapdash and disjointed in images meld together into something greater than the sum of its parts—still alien, but less disconcerting and more exotic. Think Captain Kirk's green-skinned Orion women, instead of the reptilian Gorn. The rear end is more Italian, bringing to mind the old Maserati 3200 coupe, or even some indeterminate Alfa Romeo. (Certainly helping bolster the Stinger GT's Italian vibe and its sex appeal alike: the f**k-me red shade sprayed over my test car, a Tawny Kitaen-lipstick crimson that looks like it was peeled straight off an '87 Testarossa.)
So if Kia's goal with the Stinger GT was to add some pizzazz to its U.S. lineup, it certainly succeeded. And as our own Lawrence Ulrich has repeatedly affirmed, the car's performance is more than able to cash the check its looks write. But it's one thing to test out a new car on the carefully-planned roads and closed-off tracks of a manufacturer's launch event; it's another thing altogether to throw it through the real-world blend of soul-crushing traffic, rough roads, and the occasional bout of chilly weather. Read more: 2018 Kia Stinger GT V-6 Review: Korea Builds a Modern-Day Four-Door Muscle Car
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Gotta stay true to my English teacher stereotype.) 
