This Kia Sports Automobile Concept Should’ve Been the Brand’s Miata Killer

Identify: Kia GT4 Stinger
Debut: 2014 Detroit Car Display
Motor: Turbo 2.-Liter Four-Cylinder
Electrical power: 315 Horsepower
Push Style: Rear-Wheel Travel

Toyota kicked off production of what was then referred to as the Scion FR-S athletics car or truck in 2012, and it spurred a wave of probable rivals from other producers. The Tru 140S strategy was Chevrolet’s front-wheel travel alternate. Nissan threw it again to the 1970s with the Datsun 510-inspired IDx thought. And Kia, setting up off praise for its 4-doorway GT idea from 2011, introduced the GT4 Stinger—a stylish, rear-wheel-travel sporting activities motor vehicle strategy aimed right at the Scion.

None of all those automobiles ever produced it to manufacturing, even though, the Kia involved. Chevrolet killed the Tru 140S before it had any legs and Nissan did the on-yet again-off-again point with the IDx, leading nowhere. But the Kia GT4 Stinger was the most attention-grabbing proposition of the group.

This is Notion We Forgot, Motor1’s deep dive into the unusual and wonderful principle autos you could possibly not recall.

In the mid-aughts, Kia was in the early levels of a increase. The third-era Optima sedan made a truly compelling choice to the Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys of the entire world. The Kia Soul was effectively-been given as a classy, cost-effective compact SUV. And we realized the Stinger sports activities sedan was on the horizon.

Kia debuted the GT4 Stinger at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show with fashionable great seems and real entrance-motor, rear-push proportions. This was no financial state car or truck disguised as a coupe—the GT4 Stinger had a turbocharged 2.-liter motor with a 6-speed manual and somewhere in the neighborhood of 315 horsepower.

It also only weighed 2,800 kilos, as considerably as an FR-S or Subaru BRZ and just a bit far more than the Miata at the time. The excess weight distribution was virtually 50/50, with a little bit extra more than the entrance axle. It did not even have power steering. Kia mentioned it wanted the concept to keep that pure athletics auto feeling, even though, it almost certainly wouldn’t have made it to output with no some type of electricity help.

The GT4 Stinger was even larger than the BRZ/FR-S and Miata, as well, with a 103.1-inch wheelbase and a full size of 169.7 inches. It was also 4.5 inches broader. That intended more place inside of the rear seat experienced more space than Toyota’s for-insurance plan-purposes-only next row. And the liftback-type rear meant a larger cargo keep.

The interior was built with lightness in head, ditching carpeted flooring mats for rubber inserts and doorway handles for door pulls. The floating heart console housed the shifter, ignition button… and not a lot else. Even the heart touchscreen was small (not unusual for 2014) and the gauge cluster was basically a see-through piece of glass trim perched atop the steering column. Though it was a handbook, there were paddle shifters powering the steering wheel that individually managed the flip indicators and cruise command functions.

The GT4 notion was made at Kia’s California studio, which experienced been churning out idea and manufacturing cars and trucks considering that the early 1990s. In this circumstance, the idea was to style a car with “sports-motor vehicle proportions in a again-to-basics 2+2 that could be a day-to-day driver,” famous Kia’s American style and design supervisor Kurt Kahl back in 2014. The blacked-out A-pillar gave it a “wrap-all-around sunglasses” glimpse and the Ignition Yellow paint was borrowed from the Kia Soul’ster strategy that debuted a couple of several years prior.

“Driving satisfaction was the number one particular precedence,” main designer Tom Kearns informed Motor Pattern. “The GT4 Stinger is a throwback to times when driving a auto was a visceral knowledge that was not muted by electronic gimmickry.”

Sad to say, the aspiration of a light-weight Kia sports car or truck hardly ever produced it to creation. Like all the other proposed Toyobaru rivals—the Tru 140S and the IDx—the GT4 Stinger was simply a preview of what could have been. It created the rounds at car shows around the globe just before getting retired from the circuit. Ten a long time later, the GR86 and BRZ even now do not have a authentic two-doorway rival.