[Yellowjacket]

This Australian review just popped up a couple of days ago. John Cadogan seems pretty impressed with it, and claims you wont find another grand touring model with this performance, at this price point.

 

[KoreanTune]

For 60 grand the fully loaded Kia Stinger GT, offers the same performance as a BMW 540iM sport, a car that's around the same size and yet costs $80,000 more.

Not exactly sure on the pricing in Australia, but this certainly reinforces how much car you're getting for the money in the Stinger.

 

[Yellowjacket]

Seems like he was a little disappointed with the 8 speed transmission and believes that Kia could have done a better job providing a more sporty driving experience. The automatic seems to be a little overbearing, taking too much control over up and down shifting, even when in manual mode.

 

[KoreanTune]

And this is another reason why they really should have considered a manual gearbox for driving enthusiasts. Genesis will be offering it in the upcoming G70 model, so we'll get a sense of how in demand that option still is.

 

[GTSeoul]

They will never hold on to manual transmission unless coming out with something like a Porsche Cayman rival is in their plan. The only real strategy going forward to please both enthusiast and regular owners is by improving how automatic transmissions work. Already a lot of brand have done something similar. If they can come out with an SMG equivalent then that will do a lot for Kia.

 

[Yellowjacket]

There are a lot more cars still offered with a manual than we are led to believe. Autoblog recently posted a revised list that has around 85 current models. I don't think we'll see it offered on the Stinger though, as performance models are increasingly using DCT's.

 

[KoreanTune]

I had no idea that there were still so many new models being offered with a stick shift. Thanks for listing that! Also I think John Cadogan was spot on when he said that "The fact is, the limits of performance on a V6 twin turbo Stinger are very high".