Rufus
1000 Posts Club!
An interesting take from a Musclecar aficionado on the Stinger:
Based on the tire-smoking television commercials featuring rocker Steve Tyler and racer Emerson Fittipaldi, I expected the 2018 Kia Stinger to be something akin to the Dodge Hellcat, which seems to be the generally accepted standard for the Modern Muscle Car.
OK, so no twin-turbocharged V6 is likely to match up against a supercharged V8, but based on those commercials, shouldn’t the Stinger be something of a wildcat, and at least an alley cat with an attitude?
But at this point I need to ask myself a question: Is it the Stinger that disappoints, or the entire notion of the Modern Muscle Car?
First of all, as much as I enjoy their products, and no matter what their marketing departments say, the hopped-up late-model Ford Mustangs and Chevrolet Camaros are not “modern muscle cars.”
Yes, I’m a purist, but back when John Z. DeLorean and his team of clandestine crusaders at Pontiac got this thing started, a muscle car was a mid-size hardtop or sedan into which they found a way — often despite corporate policy — to wedge beneath the hood a huge V8 engine. Upgrade the wheel/tire package, maybe the gearbox and suspension to handle the extra horsepower, and the Detroit muscle car was foisted onto American roadways, to the chagrin of some but to the delight of the rest of us.
It didn’t matter that a muscle car didn’t stop or turn with much efficiency. It came off the line and tattooed the pavement with black stripes as it raced toward the next set of lights, whether a block away on the street or a quarter-mile distant on the drag strip, or as was too often the case, the red (or red and blue) lights atop a police patrol car.
But that was a visceral world, and this is an increasingly virtual one.
Pull up to a stoplight in your GTO or 442, your Plymouth GTX or Cobra Jet-powered Torino and the burble at idle was better music than anything playing on that AM radio. Tip into the throttle a couple of times and the car next to you knew you were ready to race.
Pull up to a stoplight in a Stinger and the engine shuts off of save fuel.
Yes, the Stinger is rated at 19 mph in town and 25 on the highway, but when gas was less than a buck a gallon, it was mph not mpg that mattered. Read more: Test driving a 2018 Kia Stinger | ClassicCars.com Journal
Based on the tire-smoking television commercials featuring rocker Steve Tyler and racer Emerson Fittipaldi, I expected the 2018 Kia Stinger to be something akin to the Dodge Hellcat, which seems to be the generally accepted standard for the Modern Muscle Car.
OK, so no twin-turbocharged V6 is likely to match up against a supercharged V8, but based on those commercials, shouldn’t the Stinger be something of a wildcat, and at least an alley cat with an attitude?
But at this point I need to ask myself a question: Is it the Stinger that disappoints, or the entire notion of the Modern Muscle Car?
First of all, as much as I enjoy their products, and no matter what their marketing departments say, the hopped-up late-model Ford Mustangs and Chevrolet Camaros are not “modern muscle cars.”
Yes, I’m a purist, but back when John Z. DeLorean and his team of clandestine crusaders at Pontiac got this thing started, a muscle car was a mid-size hardtop or sedan into which they found a way — often despite corporate policy — to wedge beneath the hood a huge V8 engine. Upgrade the wheel/tire package, maybe the gearbox and suspension to handle the extra horsepower, and the Detroit muscle car was foisted onto American roadways, to the chagrin of some but to the delight of the rest of us.
It didn’t matter that a muscle car didn’t stop or turn with much efficiency. It came off the line and tattooed the pavement with black stripes as it raced toward the next set of lights, whether a block away on the street or a quarter-mile distant on the drag strip, or as was too often the case, the red (or red and blue) lights atop a police patrol car.
But that was a visceral world, and this is an increasingly virtual one.
Pull up to a stoplight in your GTO or 442, your Plymouth GTX or Cobra Jet-powered Torino and the burble at idle was better music than anything playing on that AM radio. Tip into the throttle a couple of times and the car next to you knew you were ready to race.
Pull up to a stoplight in a Stinger and the engine shuts off of save fuel.
Yes, the Stinger is rated at 19 mph in town and 25 on the highway, but when gas was less than a buck a gallon, it was mph not mpg that mattered. Read more: Test driving a 2018 Kia Stinger | ClassicCars.com Journal
Last edited by a moderator:
