Stinger

Make
Kia
Segment
Sedan

Just because a car is good doesn't mean it's going to stick around for an extended period of time. Take the Honda Civic Coupe, for instance, which was easily the most stylish Civic but has been binned for the 2021 model year. It was a similar story for the luxurious Lexus GS.

Now, there are fresh fears that one of our favorite Korean sedans, the Kia Stinger, may never see a successor. This comes after Kia Motors Australia spoke with Car Sales, with product planning chief Roland Rivero saying that the next-gen Stinger was "still under study and still to be confirmed."

Considering that the current Stinger was introduced back in 2017, now would be a logical time for information about the next-gen model to begin filtering through. This simply hasn't materialized and the latest information adds weight to a rumor from earlier this year that the second-gen Stinger's future was uncertain.

Rivero went on to explain that the current Stinger's lifecycle would be extended beyond normal expectations, allowing for more time for the company to decide on the Stinger's future, so perhaps the range's minor 2021 update won't be its last. The problem for the Kia Stinger appears to be with the key North American market, where the sedan hasn't tallied the numbers expected of it.

For example, 13,861 Stingers found homes in the US last year according to Car Sales Base, compared to 47,827 BMW 3 Series models and almost 50,000 units of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class. "We did want to be successful at least in America, the market where we thought there's a chance actually that it works," said Kia's European head of design, Gregory Guillaume, last year. "At the moment I'm not sure it's doing as good as we hoped." Things are better in Australia, where the Stinger is even used by the police force.

It would be a great pity if the sporty Stinger only hung around for a single generation, but here's hoping that Kia hasn't entirely thrown in the towel just yet.