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2018 Kia Stinger Sounds A Bit Tame

The thing with forced induction is, once you go turbo, something has to give in the sound department. That’s the reason why the outgoing generation of the F-150 Raptor fails to produce an aurally pleasant racket. Be that as it may, supercar manufacturers such as McLaren and Ferrari know how to make their twin-turbocharged V8s bellow.
2018 Kia Stinger exhaust sound 25 photos
Photo: screenshot from YouTube
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In Kia’s case, the Stinger GT five-door liftback acts as the de facto sports car in the South Korean automaker’s lineup. It also happens to be powered by the most potent variant of the company’s Lambda II T-GDI V6, a 3.3-liter twin-turbo unit with plenty of punch. Rated at 365 hp (370 PS) and 376 lb-ft (510 Nm) of torque, it’s pretty obvious the beating heart of the mid-size sedan has the skills to pay the bills.

0 to 62 mph (100 km/h) comes in just 4.9 seconds, and the speedo’s needle stops once it hits the 167-mph (270-km/h) mark. Arguably the most impressive aspect about the 3.3L TT V6 is how broad the max torque band is: 1,300 to 4,500 rpm. On the downside, Kia somehow failed with making the force-fed mill sound as exhilarating as it goes.

The following two clips, coming courtesy of a YouTube user whose name I can’t read nor write, show what’s what. It makes an OK-ish sound, I’ll give the Stinger GT that, but it doesn’t live up to the hype instilled by Kia. After all, it took the automaker six years to transform the GT from concept to series production. Oh well, seems like Kia’s engineers had something else to worry about in the said period.

If you’re one of those eagle-eyed car enthusiasts and you happened to identify that this Stinger GT doesn’t feature any Kia badges, then my hat’s off to you. “Why’s it branded E, though?” That’s the Greek letter Sigma, and for whatever reason, that’s how the Stinger GT is sold in its domestic market. And curiously enough, South Korea is the only market in the world that gets the car with the E branding.

Needless to say, the engineers and the designers aren’t too fond of this development, but at the end of the day, Kia’s marketing department in South Korea has the last word on this matter.

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About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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