Stunt double
Who could resist the opportunity to tackle one of the great Hollywood car-chase roads and drive the US-market all-wheel-drive version of the Kia Stinger? By
I’VE ALWAYS WANTED to drive a Lotus down the Basic Instinct car-chase road. Remember, when Michael Douglas pursued Sharon Stone’s Esprit over that dreamy stretch of tarmac that followed the coastline, overtaking on blind bends as horns blared? The actual road is a ribbon of Highway 1 north of San Francisco that flows alongside the Pacific Ocean towards Stinson Beach.
This month my dream almost came true. It wasn’t in a Lotus but in a Kia: a US-spec Stinger GT-S much like the one I’m enjoying back home, but with a crucial spec difference that I thought might make an interesting addition to the usual long-term test updates.
Kia isn’t exactly holding back in the UK – its image is improving, its sales growing, adverts at cricket matches – but in the US it’s in a different league: it spends big on Superbowl ads (the most recent saw Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler lap an oval track in reverse and emerge younger, which definitely wasn’t cheap), stormed the SEMA aftermarket show with a line-up of custom Telluride SUVs, builds Sorentos and Optimas in Georgia, and its network of nearly 800 dealers should blow past 600,000 cars once the 2018 figures are totted up. There are differences in the UK/US line-ups too, most notably the book-ends – the US gets neither the Picanto nor Venga hatchbacks, while the UK does without the K900 or Cadenza large saloons. But we both get the Stinger, including my 3.3-litre twin-turbo GT-S long-term test car, which
I left at Heathrow. The crucial difference is the US models are optionally available with all-wheel drive, while our right-hookers are purely rear-drivers.
I drive the all-wheel-drive Stinger from San Francisco airport to meet photographer David Bush under the Golden Gate bridge, and immediately the steering feels different, even at gentle speeds on the 101 freeway north – it’s weightier and less fluid on lock, no doubt due to the extra friction caused by the front driveshafts. But I’m surprised I notice so much difference.
More surprisingly, the other big change comes with the soundtrack – it has more character, a similar V6 warble to a Nissan 370Z. Turns out it’s all to do with our drive-by noise regulations. ‘We’re trying to get a port-fit option,’ reveals a UK Kia person. ‘It’s taking time, but the Germans have managed it.’
I meet David at 10am, when seals are basking in the calm waters on the Sausalito side of the bridge, and the city of 900,000 is clearly visible now the fog that often shrouds this area is all burnt off. We spend a little time exploring the city, and edge up roads that crest like mountain peaks to give fabulous views of the Bay and Alcatraz, dodge the cable cars that’ve roamed these streets since the late 1800s, and count the ‘mobility solutions’ – the Ford bikes, the scooters you can find by app and dump anywhere, the car-shares, the hydrogen buses. It’s all going on here.
Hollywood means much of this will seem familiar even if you’ve never visited. What’s perhaps less appreciated about San Francisco is how unbelievably close you are to idyllic nature and to great roads when you’re in the city. We need a bit of that to fully explore this US-spec Stinger.
To pick up Highway 1, first you need to briefly get back on the 101 north of the Golden Gate, then follow signs for Stinson Beach. From there it takes only a few minutes for the road to gain in interest, with second-gear hairpins and brief third-gear sprints that carry you uphill, through the eucalyptus trees and out west to the coast as the road disappears into the distance in inviting downward coils, the Pacific glinting like a sheet of glass.
The speed limit is bizarrely low, overtaking is forbidden for most of its length (the double lines are now