Autocar UK – 31 July 2019

PORSCHE LIFTS LID ON CARRERA SPEC

Porsche has released details for the entry-level 911

• the Carrera – which starts from £82,793 in coupé

form. The 3.0-litre turbo flat six drops to 380bhp

from the Carrera S’s 444bhp, but it retains the

same chassis and still manages 0-62mph in 4.2sec.

AUSTRIAN HYBRID GT PACKS 1198 BHP

The Bergmeister ADR 630 of Austrian firm Austro

Daimler will make its UK debut in September. The

striking 200mph-plus GT packs a Mercedes-AMG-

derived 3.0-litre six and three electric motors for

a combined 1198bhp. It covers 0-62mph in 2.5sec.

Kia stokes Stinger to 422bhp

One-off GT420 has a racer-like spec, holds lessons for future Kias – and we’ve driven it

Six-pot Brembo calipers

clamp 380mm discs at the

front and 5kg-lighter OZ

Ra c i n g L e g g e ra 1 9 i n r i m s a r e

wrapped in Pirelli Trofeo-R

r u b b e r. To t a ke i nto a cco u nt

the extra grip and retardation

potential, both the ESP and

ABS have had their various

thresholds changed.

We were invited to try the car

on Silverstone’s International

Circuit. Once you’ve folded

your body through the narrow

opening in the custom roll

cage, you sit nice and low in

a Sparco race seat and are

clamped firmly in place by the

four-point harness.

Look around and you’ll see

that the three–spoke steering

wheel (now without airbag),

dashboard, gear selector and

drive mode controller are about

the only items of the standard

car’s interior that survive.

Everything else has been

torn out. From behind the

wheel, it looks and feels like a

proper racer.

It sounds like one, too.

Thumb the starter and the V

crackles noisily into life – and it

gets even louder as you start to

work it hard. The combination

T

he Kia Stinger GT

track car is a one-off

developed primarily as a

bit of fun – but it’s being

used to investigate how to

further unlock the potential

of the saloon.

The machine is a Stinger

road car that has been placed

on an extreme diet, while it’s

powertrain and suspension

have been extensively

overhauled. It’s the result of

a skunkworks-style effort

between Kia UK and the

brand’s European Technical

Centre in Russelsheim,

Germany. Fine-tuning has

taken place at the firm’s

own test track, as well as the

Nürburgring Nordschleife and

Hockenheim in Germany.

Based on the first pre-

production Stinger GT-S in

the UK, which was saved

from scrappage, the GT

is around 150kg lighter than

the standard car thanks to a

stripped-out interior.

Meanwhile, its twin-

turbocharged 3.3-litre V6 has

been tuned to deliver 422bhp

and 413lb ft, improvements

of 57bhp and 37lb ft over the

donor car. These gains have

been achieved by tweaking the

ECU, adding HKS spark plugs,

a freer-flowing K&N air filter

and a de-catted Milltek Sport

exhaust system.

Substantial work has

been undertaken on the

suspension, which features

stiffer Eibach Pro springs and

heavily recalibrated Mando

passive dampers in place of the

standard adaptive units.

A modified front cross

member allows for an increase

in negative camber to 2.5deg,

and there is a pair of extra

strengthening bars at the

rear. Furthermore, the front

anti-roll bar has been increased

in thickness to 25mm, while at

the rear, it’s 17mm.

OFFICIAL PICTURES

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It’ll happily be coaxed into

neatly controllable oversteer

a

12 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 3 1 JULY 2019