I spent this Saturday at the SCCA Advanced Race Operations seminar which I’ll cover separately. On the way home, having some “spare” time for once in my life, I decided to look at vehicles – not that I can afford to buy anything but I’m easily amused and haven’t looked at what’s on the market in quite a while.
2018 Nissan Titan
My first stop was at the Nissan dealer to look at trucks. Granted, the Crutchfields recently purchased a Titan but their truck is a 4-door with the diesel – quite impressive to say the least. I was pleased to discover the Titan is available as an “extra cab” or as Datsun calls it, the King Cab and with the gasoline power plant. The biggest advantage of the King Cab is that the bed is a tiny bit longer than on the Crew Cab – 6′ 6″ vs 5′ 6″. Unfortunately, the only way to get an 8′ bed is to order the Single Cab version. The Titan nameplate is a bit confusing – there is the Titan, effectively a 1/2 ton and the Titan XD, their heavy-duty version, both is available in 3 trim levels – S – Base, SV – Mid-Level and Platinum – Luxury. I drove a Titan XD King Cab with the 5.6 gasoline engine.
2018 Nissan Titan XD, courtesy of www.nissanusa.com
First impressions were that aside from the miserable Contractor White color, the Titan isn’t bad looking – I could do without the fake side fender grills and whomever thought tan was a good color for a truck interior should be forced to clean that tan interior after a weekend at the races. I must admit that I’m still amused by touch screens that are making their way into all vehicles no matter how utilitarian. The Titan is available with WiFi which comes with apps – again, something I find new and amusing since my newest car EVER was produced in 2005.
The Overall Fit & Finish is quite good – very car-like with a myriad of nice touches such as power ports, usb jacks, and a very slick car control system including user-defined gauges, colors and convenience options. The seats are comfortable albeit in the nonsensical tan color. The rear seat folds for additional storage and from the appearance, the rear seat, like that in virtually ALL extra-cab vehicles, is more for occasional use than for long-distance touring. That’s fine since that’s why all the manufacturers are producing crew cabs these days – to fit 4 full-figured bodies in relative comfort.
From a driving perspective, the new Titan drives very car-like – quiet and smooth with quick response to the steering. Throttle response is decent but this is still a full-sized truck – it’s no sports car but if anyone is expecting that, they’ll be sorely disappointed. The venerable 5.6L V8 is coupled to a 7-speed transmission that is seamless. The road manners were surprisingly good – it tracks straight without the vagueness and wandering of older trucks. Even compared to the previous Titan, the new Titan is a big step forward. The old Titan was a carbon copy of an F150 – the new Titan has stepped out on it’s own.
The price tag on this mid-line truck with relatively undesirable options (King Cab and gasoline powertrain) was a touch over $42K – not bad considering F150s are in the high 40s to low 50s!! The trim level, SV, offers enough creature comforts to make the Titan very comfortable without the drawbacks of leather or the financial penalty of the diesel powertrain. For anyone who needs a truck only to tow, this isn’t a bad option – easily $15K less than a Ford Superduty or $8K less than a diesel version of the Titan, that’s a lot of fuel savings that needs to be made up to justify the cost differential.
2018 Kia Stinger
2018 Kia Stinger, courtesy of kia.com
My second stop was at the Kia dealership – admittedly, a friend had been car shopping and looked at the Stinger. I hadn’t even heard of the model until then – now, of course, I’ve seen the ads on TV but probably only because I know about the Stinger. Unlike the rest of the Kia line which is a bit stodgy, the Stinger is quite the styling exercise. Like the Audi A7, the Stinger is a 4-door hatchback that looks more like a 4-door sedan. The exterior styling is more Germanic than Korean with bold lighting and more than a few well placed air ducts.
The interior is surprising in that the rear seat has tremendous legroom – Brad would likely fit in the back seat BUT head room, while above my head, likely wouldn’t work well for anyone much over 6 feet tall. The seats are of a patterned leather that reminds me of the seats in a ’66 Mustang albeit in leather vs Naugahyde. The only big drawback to the seats is that they’re low to the floor with no real means to raise the seat – yes, they’re power but by design, the GT seating style puts the occupants “on the floor”. The trim is quite attractive with the obligatory power ports and USB points. Once nice touch were the rear seat vents – something I hadn’t expected to see on what i perceived to be a small car and especially from Korea.
I drove the GT version with the twin-turbo V6 – yes, TWIN-TURBO, V6! Opening the hood, the 4-cylinder offers ACRES of room to work on the front of the motor and even the V6 had room that didn’t require removing the front of the car to change a drive belt. The GT was equipped with the Technology pack (no THANKS!!) as well as an HUD unit (very cool). While I didn’t test the radar cruise control, the lane keeper technology is quite interesting and the HUD is a neat feature. Being a bit of a gadget freak, I did find myself purposely edging towards line markers just to make the car’s electronics work it’s magic. I could see this growing old quickly though – I’d rather run off the road unannounced.
The most impressive feature of the Stinger is its acceleration. Tooling around, it’s mundane, soft and demure. Bury your right foot and the Stinger absolutely screams. Kia’s claimed 0-60 is 4.7 seconds with a 167 mph top speed – given what i saw, I believe it. Coupled with a 5-position active handling system, this Kia is certainly knocking on the doors of Audi and BMW.
The full-boat Stinger is $52K – not bad when compared to Audi or BMW. The only challenge is convincing yourself and your Euro-trash friends that a Kia can do everything their German luxo-sedan can do for at least $10K less money.
Enjoy!!
