The fastest Kia Stinger is now the only one you can buy

The Kia Stinger has just been facelifted. And now the only one you can buy in the UK is the fastest (and best) one.

Yup – Kia has binned the Stinger diesel and lesser petrol, presumably because it didn’t sell all that many, leaving only the 361bhp GT S on sale in Britain. You can pre-order one right now for £42,595.

Beyond trimming the range down to just the one model, Kia has also given the Stinger new headlights and new wheel/colour choices (such as the blue pictured). Inside there’s the company’s latest infotainment system, 64-colour ambient lighting and higher-quality materials for “a more luxurious ambience”. New safety tech includes blind-spot monitoring, which displays the feeds from wide-angle cameras under the door mirrors in the instrument cluster.

The Stinger’s familiar 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 drives the rear-wheels through an eight-speed automatic gearbox. 0-60mph takes 4.7 seconds, which makes the Stinger GT S the fastest-accelerating Kia ever, and the top speed is an autobahn-friendly 167mph. It always has been and remains quite unlike anything else on sale, and really quite likable.

Tap here to see how the Stinger compares to the Ford Mustang (yes, they really are rivals) and click here to see what it’s like to actually live with a Stinger for a few months.