When the motor industry has been in a less torrid state than it is at present, its diversions into oddball, even fun developments demonstrate that its endeavours are not always earnest. Volkswagen does it every year at Worthersee, when it encourages its ‘Saturday Club’ engineers to present their latest wacky prototypes at an annual German customised car event. Ford has produced F1-engined Transits and rally-inspired versions of its smaller Transit Connect van, while Renault squeezed an F1 engine into its Espace people-carrier.
Kia has concentrated on more serious prototypes in recent times, some of which have dealt with haptic controls, or developing EVs and hybrids that have subsequently come to market. However, nestling within the UK-based PR team of the company is a subtle competition streak that has been crying out for a marketing opportunity to showcase some of its hidden talents. It arose, when the very first Stinger model to be registered in the UK, was set to be returned to its homeland after having covered 10,000 fairly hard miles.
As tends to be the case with manufacturers’ production prototypes, they are given a ‘tax-free’ status, which demands that they be ‘crushed’ after having served their R&D purpose, to avoid legally paying the various duties and taxes on them. This was when Kia UK decided that repurposing the Stinger might give it a fresh lease of life, although it would never be road-registered again.
All of the ingredients for creating the eye-catching ‘Stinger GT420’ exist in its DNA. Its meaty 3,342cc V6 twin-turbocharged petrol engine with direct injection develops 365bhp before being breathed upon. Improvements made to breathing, including removal of the exhaust catalysts and installing a new transmission cooler increased the power to a whopping 422bhp. However, making the car lighter was also a core requisite.
Kia’s own garage in Chippenham stripped out the interior and under-bonnet to shed around 150kgs, after installing a roll-cage, racing seats, belts and fire extinguisher system. Underbody stiffening comprises of a cross bar at the front and a pair of bars at the rear. To improve handling, a set of wider OZ Racing Leggera rims clad in Pirelli Trofeo R tyres, 235/35/R19 at the front and 265/30/R19 at the rear, provide maximum adhesion on the track. The camber angle was increased to -2.5 degrees, by modifying the front cross-member, and uprated Brembo six-pot front brakes and racing flexible steel pipes fitted, along with high performance 380x34mm discs and pads.
The standard dampers were used for the race set up, with Eibach Pro lowering springs and anti-roll bars of 25mm at the front. At the rear, a 17mm in-house anti-roll bar was fitted. The continuous damping control was axed in favour of a conventional damper set up with some fine tuning. The end result is fun and will be used to promote the Kia brand in the UK.
