Value judgment

Enright wonders whether he landed the right Stinger

THE LAW of diminishing returns is something a Kia Stinger GT owner soon becomes intimately acquainted with. I was minded of this fact on a recent drive of Mercedes-amg’s ballistic C63 S in Germany. It’s a mightily impressive thing, but that 375kw sedan will set you back about $165K. Each kilowatt would therefore cost you $440. Compare that to this 272kw Stinger where one kilowatt is priced at pretty much half that: a bargain basement $221. The Civic Type-r, recent winner of sister title MOTOR’S Bang For Your Bucks, will set you back a sniff more at $223/kw. Even a Suzuki Swift Sport’s nags are pricier at $247 a pop.

Should you delve a little further down the Stinger V6 line up, the equation becomes even sweeter, the $48,990 330S delivering sterling value at $180 per kilowatt. This seems to represent the most attractive 200kw+ performance bargain available to Aussie buyers, but does piling it high and selling it cheap necessarily make it a good buy or should you fork out for the pricier GT?

The answer to this question, like so many others, is ‘it depends’. The narrower 225mmwide rear tyres of the 330S means it can’t get its power to the bitumen quite like the 255mm-shod GT, blunting its pace off the line. The steel-sprung 330S also lacks the GT’S adaptive dampers, although opinion is divided on whether the adaptive units are blessing or blunder. For what it’s worth, I prefer the passive damper set-up. The optimum solution could well be a model running the passive suspension tune with the wider rear tyres. Such a car does exist. The Stinger 330Si is priced at $55,990 but hardly anybody buys this apparent ‘Goldilocks’ model, largely because the GT ladles on a load of extra kit for a mere $4K premium. Aside from the adaptive dampers, it gets a 360-degree camera, blind-spot detection, rear cross-traffic alert, automatic high beam, headlights that turn as you do, a powered front passenger seat, adaptive bolsters and memory function for the driver’s seat, heating and cooling for both front chairs, dark chrome exterior bits, a powered sunroof, a head-up display, a 7.0-inch LCD supervision cluster, wireless phone charging, aluminium interior finishes, and a 15-speaker Harman Kardon stereo, among other things.

There are a few items in that list that, a few months in, I wouldn’t really want to be without. What’s more, the Stinger GT offers all that gear for 80 percent of the price of one optional AMG carbon-ceramic brake disc. It’s hard to argue with a deal like that. Diminishing returns be damned.