Kia is definitely making some big waves with its new Stinger GT model. The car was launched to great critical acclaim and most journalists said something along the same lines about it, that it’s impressive to say the least. Sure, the South Korean company still has some ground to cover until it can actually hang with the big boys from Germany but the fact that BMW’s ex Motorsport VP of Engineering is now working for them, you can understand why the Stinger is so damn good.
However, I could never understand, for the life of me, why some manufacturers resort to obviously biased reviews to put their products in favorable light. It’s not just Kia with this latest video that does such things but other companies as well, from Lexus to some American brands. To me it seems rather redundant to pit your product against one of more premium competitors and then show the results as you like to interpret them. It’s even worse when the cars compared are not even playing in the same league.
Kia was so adamant to show how good the Stinger GT is that it commissioned an independent testing company to pit it against a base Porsche Panamera and a BMW 640i Gran Coupe. By now you’re probably thinking the same thing I was when I first saw the title of the clip: these aren’t exactly Kia Stinger GT rivals. Both German cars are considerably larger and heavier, not to mention nearly twice as expensive. On the other hand, on the power front, they aren’t exactly twice as powerful.
Those things considered, the results were definitely going to be leaning in favor of the Kia, especially given the course they were tested on. Yes, the Stinger GT is faster and better poised on a technical track than its competitors here which are several hundred pounds heavier, it’s physics. But what annoys me the most is the fact that the product Kia brought out is already confirmed by the media as very good, there’s no need for such bombastic, nearly ridiculous comparisons. It is our job, as unbiased reviewers of the press to let people know which car is best and in its own segment, the Kia is a very good proposition, no matter how you look at it.
