Australians are more interested in the look of the Kia Stinger than its rear-wheel drive performance credentials.
That’s the out-take from research the Kia Motors Australia has undertaken after achieving sales well below initial expectations.
“All the research we are getting shows the number one reason people are buying the car is how it looks, not how it goes,” said KMA Chief Operating Officer, Damien Meredith.
“Looking at the research I think we probably should have focussed more on how the car looks than how the car performs.
“That certainly surprises me.”
In 2018 KMA sold 1957 Stingers – with 92 per cent of them being the top-spec twin-turbo V6-powered Stinger GT priced at $60,000 – for an average of 163 per month.
That’s well under the 300 or more sales-per-month hoped for when the car first went on sale in late 2017.
“I want more than that, but it’s OK. It’s 12 per cent of that [large car] segment.”
While Holden’s imported Commodore led the large mainstream car segment last year with more than 9000 sales, the Kia Stinger was the only other model into quadruple digits with almost 2000 sales.
But Stinger sales are miles off those of the VFII Holden Commodore, which finished production in October 2017, before which sales were running at almost 2000 per month.
KMA envisioned the Stinger replacing the Commodore and Ford Falcon in Aussie hearts as an affordable rear-wheel drive sports sedan but that has not eventuated.
“I think the enthusiasm has dropped off dramatically [for rear-wheel drive] with what’s happened with Falcon and Commodore and it’s just disappeared,” said Meredith.
He made the point that Kia wasn’t as yet associated with rear-wheel drive performance and thought that was another contributor to muted sales.
“We’ve had 14 months of it [Stinger] and Holden and Ford has had 60 years of it, so we are not going to move the needle like that in 14 months,” he said.
“We have been incredibly lucky we positioned the car as a rear-wheel drive performance vehicle and it resonated. I think we did a good job in building the car up in terms of the excitement factor before we launched it.
“But there is no doubt we can’t transfer 60 years of heritage into our brand and into our product.”
The Stinger was advertised with the slogan ‘for the drive of it’ when it launched.
A television commercial showing a road worker painting a curved white line down a bitumen road and then following it at speed in a Stinger.
But that is going to change for 2019, Meredith confirmed.
“We are looking at a new TVC,” he said.
“Looks beautiful, is sexy and goes quick,” he suggested tongue in cheek.
“I have always been a marketing guru,” he laughed.
Intriguingly, the sale of 120 Stingers to Queensland Highway Patrol has helped raise the profile of the car in that state and led to stronger sales there, Meredith believes.
“Road presence means a lot and we over-achieve in terms of Stinger sales in Queensland and there’s one obvious reason for that.
“The product is visible in Queensland, it must be a good product [if] the coppers are driving it … etcetera.”
Meredith also revealed dealer feedback is pointing to a mature male buyer for the Stinger, which would help explain the top-spec model mix.
“Mum’s probably driving the SUVs. Kids might be late teens or early 20s and dad’s done alright and has the money to go and buy the car he wants to buy.
“Once upon a time he was probably driving an XY Ford or something like that.”
Indeed, Kia says Stinger trade-ins are split evenly between homegrown Commodores/Falcons, European cars and other Kia models.
But Meredith also said the decision not to proactively sell Stinger to fleets and concentrate on private customers had impacted its sales.
Earlier this week, he admitted that Kia Australia’s large sedan focus would also shift solely to the Stinger because the mid-size Optima will be axed by the end of this year.
“We’ll focus on Stinger in that market and we’d love to sell a few more,” he said.