Kia Stinger Ready To Begin Final Phase Of Local Suspension Tuning Program

The much-anticipated rear-wheel drive Kia Stinger won’t arrive in Australia until later this year, but before it make its way to Australia it, like nearly all other Kia models, will undergo a suspension calibration program tuned to the needs of Australian customers.

That program, overseen by handling guru Graeme Gambold, is now up to its second phase, as confirmed by Kia Australia’s general manager of media and corporate communications, Kevin Hepworth.

“The first of the P1 cars that come off the line, that’s our pre-production first run, our team go up there [Korea] and then they drive the car at the proving ground. They make some adjustments, they work with tuning guys, and they try and they get it to a stage that they think is okay,” Mr Hepworth explained.

“They then build a second P2 model, that comes to Australia with that tuning on it, and they do it on the roads, in Australia, with their bums in the seat. It’s not a computer program, it’s not a phone-in job, it’s actually Graeme [Gambold] and our team on the road, driving the cars, changing the shocks in and out Within the parameters that are allowable it’s fine-tuned as far as it can go. That means tuning the shocks, springs, rollbars, and when they’ve reached a stage where they guys are happy, it’s as good as they can make for the locals they sign off on that and it hits the production run.”