Kia Stinger posts Australian sales record amid fight to stay in showrooms

The Kia Stinger performance sedan posted a sales record in Australia last month – the highest monthly tally since it arrived in local showrooms four-and-a-half years ago.

Official sales figures published by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) showed there were 314 examples of the Kia Stinger reported as sold in February 2022, after a large shipment of vehicles ordered throughout last year were distributed to customers in one month.

The Kia Stinger sales record of 314 vehicles in February 2022 eclipses the previous record of 247 set in June 2020 – and the first full month of sales in October 2017 when 223 were reported as sold.

Kia Australia says it is “business as usual” for the Kia Stinger and insists there are no imminent plans to prematurely withdraw the model from sale locally, even though the Stinger has been impacted by the move away from sedans globally.

Last year, a report out of South Korea claimed the Kia Stinger would come to an early end to make way on the production line for a hybrid version of the Kia Carnival people mover.

Since that report, however, Kia Australia says it is not aware of any plans to withdraw the Kia Stinger from the local market early.

Even if the Kia Stinger completes its original model lifecycle as planned, it has already passed the halfway mark and likely has a maximum of two to three years remaining before it is replaced by an all-new model – or not at all.

Earlier this year, the boss of Kia Australia, Damien Meredith told Drive: “We've received no notification from head office when they will stop making the Stinger for us. For us, it’s business as usual and we continue to sell the car.”

Kia Australia said it will continue to fill fleet orders with police agencies in Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. However, contrary to recent media reports, the Kia Australia boss told Drive the company is yet to sign a fleet deal with NSW Police.

One of the challenges for the Kia Stinger is fitting out the vehicle with police equipment at this late stage of its model cycle, given the cost of engineering unique brackets and other specialist equipment. Police fleets prefer to fit-out vehicles at the start of their model cycles to make the changeovers more economical over several years.

Drive understands NSW Police fleet operators are weighing up whether to make the investment in a fit-out of the Kia Stinger so late in its model cycle, as a stop-gap measure to replace the Chrysler 300 SRT which is due to be phased out. 

One possibility is that the Kia Stinger may be withdrawn from other markets prematurely, but remain on sale in Australia – if Kia can secure enough fleet business.

Although the Kia Stinger has won many Ford and Holden performance-car fans, it hasn’t met Kia’s sales expectations globally.

In 2019, one of the creators of the Kia Stinger concept, Gregory Guillaume – then-vice president, senior chief designer of Kia’s styling studio in Germany – told Australian media in Frankfurt: “At the moment I’m not sure it’s doing as good as we hoped.”

“We never really expected to do massive volumes,” said Mr Guillaume. “It was a halo car. We did want to be successful at least in America, the market where we thought there is a chance that it works. We had very high expectations for that market and it’s very difficult to start in such segments.”

At the time, Mr Guillaume said he hoped Kia would give the Stinger sedan a second chance because it takes time to get established when new to a segment.

However, he also floated the possibility the next-generation Kia Stinger could be replaced by an electric sports sedan.

“As you know there’s a lot going on with electrification, so it could be that Stinger becomes something else. I don’t know. We’re not there yet. We’ve got a bit of time,” Mr Guillaume said in 2019.

When asked when a decision on the next generation Stinger will be made, Mr Guillaume said: “We have to see if Stinger continues – first of all if it will be continuing, which I really hope so – and if we think this is the format to continue in the future.”

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