Kia Stinger Age Demographics

[Deep Chroma Blue]

With all due respect, I'm glad I didn't buy a "new" car that was broken in that way....

Indeed! I believe you've stated that several times on this forum.

 

[kamauxx]

Indeed! I believe you've stated that hundreds of times on several forums.

Lol. He really does say that alot. In addition to mentioning his G8, GTO, and parking outside at work before he retired. That's hilarious.

 

[mldavis2]

Well you won't have to put up with much of that from here on. My GT2 is here and I don't spend time waiting for it. Sorry if I bored anyone, offended some or overstated my opinions.

Bye.

 

[stingingseattle]

Well you won't have to put up with much of that from here on. My GT2 is here and I don't spend time waiting for it. Sorry if I bored anyone, offended some or overstated my opinions.

Bye.

Can't tell if you're serious but its the internet my friend, people joke around.

 

[kamauxx]

Well you won't have to put up with much of that from here on. My GT2 is here and I don't spend time waiting for it. Sorry if I bored anyone, offended some or overstated my opinions.

Bye.

Lol, calm down man. It's just funny.

My wife and kids give me shit all the time when I repeat my stories.

 

[mldavis2]

Lol, calm down man. It's just funny.

My wife and kids give me shit all the time when I repeat my stories.

Yeah, sorry. Sarcasm doesn't read well on the 'net. And at my age, I forget what and where I said things on occasion.

 

[Kelly]

51 years young, last time I had a car that was this much fun was a 91 Toyota MR2 jspec turbo with mods that I sold in 2006. Once I saw the Stinger and drove it I had to have it and don't regret it at all.

 

[MarkyMark]

Interesting to see how the Stinger is clearly hitting up the mid-life crisis demographic - mostly. Of course, there are not many younger adults that can afford a car like this, unless getting into the leasing game or going into massive debt - or both - and older folks tend to have had their "fun" with sport and enjoy a software, quieter ride - mostly.

It seems the 70's midlife guy was a Thunderbird convertible (AKA Disco Sled) guy, with unbuttoned silk shirt with his "manly" chest hair sticking out, with gold chains galore (the Mr. T Starter Kit). All while trying to suck in the pot belly, wearing a rug or sporting a nice comb-over, while trying to date some young gal...

Today's mid-life-crisis guy still appears to be bent on sports power, but now it requires family functionality, thus the hatchback for justification. And instead of trying to put lipstick on a pig (fake hair, gold chains and horrible looking disc clothes) instead the mid-life guy shaves his head bald or close too, hits the gym to get that last bit of youth he can find, and - I think - is more family oriented.

In other words, it's kinda a car for me! 47, lovely wife and 3 kiddos and a dog! ; )

 

[mldavis2]

And then there are those of us who defy definition, who are outside of the norm, who have been "car guys" forever, who have never grown up. It's not a mid-life crisis for me, a category long since past. My signature line belies my passion for cars, if a bit below status level until recently. But I don't buy cars any longer for utility, which is why I refuse to own a Utility Vehicle. And I don't twaddle around town in a big Buick or seek status with a Cadillac or MB or BMW or Audi or Lexus or Acura badge. I buy cars for myself, unencumbered by my wife's demands or opinions. She drives what I give her, and although a very strong, self-willed woman, she defers to me completely for transportation. How very lucky I am. I'm too old to worry what others think of my choices, I have only myself to please and I apologize to no one, which is why I leave at least one Kia badge on the car. I don't drag main or hang out in parking lots. I could have bought most anything out there. Many cars were discarded because of restricted leg and knee room dictated by the ever-encroaching proliferation and subsequent expansion of center-console gadgetry. Just finding a cockpit into which I fit is challenge enough - long legs and 6'4" tall. I drive long distances several times a year, having chosen to avoid air travel for the same reason I reject so very many cars - I don't fit in the seats any longer.

So in my reluctant search for something to replace the venerable G8GT, I stumbled across a sleek Korean GT that grabbed my attention. I fit the front seat, albeit with some distaste for the right knee against the right angle of the center console when manspreading, but I can live with it. And two old geezers, Fittipaldi and the rock star, gettin' it on with this lovely machine, German engineered and Korean built, full of power and promises, attracted my attention. Some day the kids will show up and ask me for my keys, throw me into an assisted living facility and sell the Stinger or whatever follows it, and forget I was enamored with technology and engineering. Perhaps I can paper the walls of my cell with posters of all the great machines I've driven or lusted over. I can try to remember the first new car, the Plymouth GTX 440CID that my father game me for making it home alive from Viet Nam -- a beautiful electric blue with white vinyl top and white vinyl interior which I reluctantly sold when I could no longer reliably find premium leaded fuel on the road. Or the obligatory Saab which dictated a move to a family car for a decade or so. But I arise like a Phoenix from the ashes of 4 cylinder boredom and return to the joys of power and handling. I bemoan the demise of my favorite Pontiac GM division and GM Holden and turn to -- an import of all things. I cannot hope to achieve anything like the repair-free reliability of those last Pontiacs with the Korean GT, but I can hope, and I can drive and I can enjoy finding one more link in the chain to oblivion. Most people my age are hauling groceries or prescription meds from the pharmacy or running to doctor's appointments. Me? I'm haulin' a$$.

 

[MarkyMark]

And then there are those of us who defy definition, who are outside of the norm, who have been "car guys" forever, who have never grown up. It's not a mid-life crisis for me, a category long since past. My signature line belies my passion for cars, if a bit below status level until recently. But I don't buy cars any longer for utility, which is why I refuse to own a Utility Vehicle. And I don't twaddle around town in a big Buick or seek status with a Cadillac or MB or BMW or Audi or Lexus or Acura badge. I buy cars for myself, unencumbered by my wife's demands or opinions. She drives what I give her, and although a very strong, self-willed woman, she defers to me completely for transportation. How very lucky I am. I'm too old to worry what others think of my choices, I have only myself to please and I apologize to no one, which is why I leave at least one Kia badge on the car. I don't drag main or hang out in parking lots. I could have bought most anything out there. Many cars were discarded because of restricted leg and knee room dictated by the ever-encroaching proliferation and subsequent expansion of center-console gadgetry. Just finding a cockpit into which I fit is challenge enough - long legs and 6'4" tall. I drive long distances several times a year, having chosen to avoid air travel for the same reason I reject so very many cars - I don't fit in the seats any longer.

So in my reluctant search for something to replace the venerable G8GT, I stumbled across a sleek Korean GT that grabbed my attention. I fit the front seat, albeit with some distaste for the right knee against the right angle of the center console when manspreading, but I can live with it. And two old geezers, Fittipaldi and the rock star, gettin' it on with this lovely machine, German engineered and Korean built, full of power and promises, attracted my attention. Some day the kids will show up and ask me for my keys, throw me into an assisted living facility and sell the Stinger or whatever follows it, and forget I was enamored with technology and engineering. Perhaps I can paper the walls of my cell with posters of all the great machines I've driven or lusted over. I can try to remember the first new car, the Plymouth GTX 440CID that my father game me for making it home alive from Viet Nam -- a beautiful electric blue with white vinyl top and white vinyl interior which I reluctantly sold when I could no longer reliably find premium leaded fuel on the road. Or the obligatory Saab which dictated a move to a family car for a decade or so. But I arise like a Phoenix from the ashes of 4 cylinder boredom and return to the joys of power and handling. I bemoan the demise of my favorite Pontiac GM division and GM Holden and turn to -- an import of all things. I cannot hope to achieve anything like the repair-free reliability of those last Pontiacs with the Korean GT, but I can hope, and I can drive and I can enjoy finding one more link in the chain to oblivion. Most people my age are hauling groceries or prescription meds from the pharmacy or running to doctor's appointments. Me? I'm haulin' a$$.

Nice take!

 

[powermatt]

Stereotypical millennial here, on top of that I work at an Internet company here in Silicon Valley.

 

[DBurd]

At 45, for me it?s not about a midlife crisis, it?s about:
- My kids are older with their own cars, I can cater more to myself.
- I no longer live in a rural area where a truck/suv was more practical.
- At this stage in my life, I have extra money to have fun with a car like this!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MarkyMark]

At 45, for me it?s not about a midlife crisis, it?s about finally being able to afford the car I want to drive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yah, what I said - mid-life crisis!
I'm in the same boat for the most part. I always wanted a performance vehicle of some sort, but too young, too broke, or both! Ford Probe, then Nissan Maxima, now Mazda6, but nothing that was truly a BMW M-series "type" of vehicle. Besides:
A. BMW = Massively expensive and a maintenance machine/headache costing an arm and a leg after warranty (all German performance vehicles)...
B. BMW IMHO has become quite stale. They are turning into VW with every vehicle looking identical from 2010, 2015, 2020, while doubling down on numb, boring handling characteristics with pony engines (to increase volume into mainstream markets - the non-M 3-series vehicles I'm specifically thinking of).

Overall, I've had to "settle" if you will. 3 kids and a wife, still need practicality, but have always like sedans. But the sedans, like "smart" phones before iPhone, were all incrementally becoming smarter. We have a new keyboard. We have a flip out keyboard, our keyboard is smaller, our is bigger. Then iPhone says no. No keyboard, all glass, all display. It was a leapfrog moment. Sure, the iPhone is more, but you'll find huge value in it and find a way to afford it.

I look at Stinger and say it's very similar. The mainstream sedan market is just incrementally moving more sporty. The Camry, still a Camry with more sport plastics on the nose than ever before. The Accord. Nice. 250-ish HP vehicles that are more sporty if not awkard looking due to trying to "look" sporty in the same old chassis configuration as previous generation family sedans. Mazda6, Kia Optima, all getting sportier, incrementally so. Even the new Buick Regal Sportback... The Malibu re-skinned, and the GS gets sport seats, but it's a soft pedestrian ride, without the power or performance of... The Stinger!

Boom! The Stinger falls in out of the sky and like that original iPhone, it's a game changer. It's leapfrog product. Even the base model w/Premium package is a car that could be had in the $34k - $36k range. Like the iPhone, it's amazingly functional (hatch with loads of room) and leapfrogs in design, quality interior, and performance handing and a peppy engine. Many will find a few more thousand to make it work.

Then there is the GT variants. If finds the soft underbelly of the 320/330 BMW series that lacks in performance characteristics all over the place, but costs the same, if not less depending (with REAL leather mind you). Now it's hitting people spending more looking at spending less - and getting more in a Stinger! Wow.

And then these are those that say for a bit more I can get an iPhone 8 Plus (AKA Stinger GT over Stinger Base). That's my position. Saving more, waiting a bit longer in order to do so, and waiting for 2019's as Kia has decided to ship the GT AWD w/Drive Wise ONLY with 18-inch rims and All Seaons for 2018 model year. I'm hoping for more flexibility for the 2019 models to get 19's and Summer Michelin Sports on this sports machine!... But I digress...

Bottom Line: Is it a mid-life crisis? I dunno. Maybe? Maybe not? But if having just enough to afford at GT, along with feeling as if it's my "last shot" to own a performance car I can handle as a performance car at age 47?... Yah, maybe a modern-day mid-life crisis it is. I can live with that! ; )

 

[swrocket]

At 50, my mid-life crisis, if you want to call it that, is my 2014 Z/28. I consider the Stinger a mature, responsible, choice

 

[MarkyMark]

At 50, my mid-life crisis, if you want to call it that, is my 2014 Z/28. I consider the Stinger a mature, responsible, choice

Well said [MENTION=734]swrocket[/MENTION]!

 

[FuzzyHat]

I'm 62 and retired, might be one of the oldest on here. We spent the last year deciding between getting the Candenza or the Stinger, after test driving both we purchased the Stinger the same day.

 

[mldavis2]

I'm 62 and retired, might be one of the oldest on here. We spent the last year deciding between getting the Candenza or the Stinger, after test driving both we purchased the Stinger the same day.

Nope. Maybe we ought to start a geezers group.

 

[FuzzyHat]

Nope. Maybe we ought to start a geezers group.

LOL Geezer group sound good to me.

 

[MarkyMark]

I'm 62 and retired, might be one of the oldest on here. We spent the last year deciding between getting the Candenza or the Stinger, after test driving both we purchased the Stinger the same day.

[MENTION=793]FuzzyHat[/MENTION], See that's just called "reliving your childhood" Ha! But of course, that phrase actually makes little sense, because when a child, A. you didn't care about cars and B. Didn't ever drive one... So what on earth are you "reliving?" ; )

CONGRATS!!!

 

[FuzzyHat]

[MENTION=793]FuzzyHat[/MENTION], See that's just called "reliving your childhood" Ha! But of course, that phrase actually makes little sense, because when a child, A. you didn't care about cars and B. Didn't ever drive one... So what on earth are you "reliving?" ; )

CONGRATS!!!

LOL you forgot college years