Facelift Kia Stinger spied again as engine conundrum looms

With a second generation reportedly not happening, the facelift Kia Stinger has once again turned-up in South Korea, albeit this time in convoy with the pre-facelift derivative and with questions being asked about its engine choices.

According to The Korean Car Blog, citing a report from Auto Post magazine, the Korean market Stinger, based on an identification sticker on the windscreen, will allegedly continue with the current 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine and the 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 as most of the effort will be put into models destined for North America and the United Arab Emirates.

In these forms, the Stinger will use the new 2.5 T-GDI engine from the Kia K5 and Genesis G80, while the GT could gather motivation from the bigger 3.5-litre twin-turbo bent-six. The surprise rumour comes on the back of the Stinger continuing to post poor sales figures in key markets, one being the States where only a 1 000 or so are being moved each month.

“The release of the second-generation Stinger has not been decided yet. We plan to focus on preparing for the partial change model launch in the second half of this year,” an unnamed Kia spokesperson was quoted by Auto Post as saying.

“It is a model that greatly contributes to raising Kia’s brand image to ‘high performance and sporty’ above the volume. Stinger is a sports sedan based on rear-wheel drive and is a model that imprints Kia’s high-performance image at home and abroad”.

According to the publication, the representative also lashed out at the rumours surrounding the Stinger’s discontinuing, describing it as “fake news” and “groundless”. He did state however that the Stinger will be unveiled in July before hinting that a more powerful model would be introduced.

Despite the remarks, the online publication alleges that a spotted right-hand-drive prototype, likely destined for Australia, came equipped with the 3.3-litre engine as well, suggesting that it too would feature the reworked exterior as the Korean-spec model, but with no changes being applied underneath the bonnet.

As it stands though, the facelift Stinger is unlikely to be offered in South Africa where sales ended in September 2018 after all of the 28 GT models allocated were snapped-up after a mere three months.

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