Just two days ago, Kia teased a new concept car across its social channels, and it had me fascinated. The car’s EV-like proportions and four-door bodystyle led many to believe this would be the all-electric Stinger replacement, marking the Stinger as the only truly fun gas-powered car ever built by the brand.
I didn’t think we’d see anything more on this car until January at the Brussels Motor Show, but nope. All we had to do was sit around for 48 hours, and Kia’s gone ahead and revealed the whole thing. The car is called the Vision Meta Turismo, and it’s … very bright.
There’s a bright gold paint job that covers the entire fastback’s body, and a pretty spectacular greenhouse with a huge windscreen that spans beyond the front row and into the rear seating area. The whole roof is basically glass, save for a piece of V-shaped gold body and a lattice of black-colored beams.
Inside, the brightness continues. The driver’s section mirrors the gold paint from the exterior, with a yellow seat and a yellow section of dashboard. There’s a steering yoke—also yellow—and, interestingly, a joystick mounted to an armrest jutting out from the seat. Kia doesn’t say what the joystick does, though. Looking closely at how it’s mounted, it looks like it only articulates forward and backward, not side to side. It seems my dreams of a joystick-controlled production car will have to wait. But it’s a neat feature nonetheless.
Kia hasn’t actually said anything about this car being related to the Stinger, but company president Ho-sung Song told InsideEVs last year told InsideEVs such a car was “under study.” This is probably why people are relating this car to the Stinger in any capacity. If this car were put into production, it could occupy the Stinger’s spot in the lineup (it ended production back in 2023).
That being said, the Meta Turismo’s proportions are nothing like the Stinger’s. The Stinger had a traditional, gas-powered rear-wheel drive sedan profile reminiscent of its European competitors, while this car is more egg-shaped, like a Mercedes EQE or Honda’s 0 Series Saloon concept. Makes sense, considering there’s no ICE drivetrain to worry about. Here’s how Kia describes the car:
[The Vision Meta Turismo is] our first bold glimpse into the future of mobility. More than a car, it combines human-centered design with advanced technology to deliver emotional and immersive experiences.
Whether the Meta Turismo will actually go into production isn’t clear right now. If it does, I don’t see a world where it comes to the U.S., considering the softening demand for electric cars domestically right now. That could change in a few years, of course, but for now, I suspect this is simply a fun concept meant to show off Kia’s future design ambitions.
Top graphic image: Kia
“human-centered design”
I’m pretty sure all cars today are shareholder-centred designs, which by definition excludes real humans.
I mean, they were always shareholder-centred, just happens that in the last 15 years or so they got really good at distilling off the human element that made its way in.
Bold visions for connecting with transportation experiences that sublimate and transcend traditional paradigms of what people think, feel about, and act towards the future of mobility is the most boring, useless, bullshit no-nothing copy ever press released or vomited from the logorrheaic soulless anal-oral orifice a marketing slug ever excreted.
TIL “logorrheaic”, which sounds (at least to my non-native mind) like diarrhoea, and means something close to it, but with words!
This all takes me back to a thought experiment I had about helicopters and how a rotating joystick could replace the need for foot pedals.
Still need the left stick for collective, but a laterally rotating joystick could replace the foot pedals and be perhaps more intuitive. And while we’re at it, an upward lift to the grip to increase collective and a down to reduce it would be possible. Get rid of the collective stick.
Probably too late. I should have patented that. It would only work fly-by-wire. We’ll see if that comes to fruition.
I’ve had a couple of other ideas I should have patented that became reality years after I thought of them in my teens. But perhaps they were already patented. This was in the early 70s. Automatic volume control based on velocity. Active noise cancellation.
I am not going to research it or lose any sleep over all that.
My favorite plane to fly was an early Cessna 150 with manual flaps, where you could feel the resistance depending on what speed you were flying when you were deploying them. Kind of like driving a car with a really communicative steering system.
i would love a boat throttle to tell the ECU what rpm range you want the engine to operate at.
The trailing point of the front fender and leading point of the rear fender call to mind the Hyundai Kona, not anything Kia.
Pretty sure the joystick is how you aim the gatling laser cannon.
Anyone else think this thing looks like a Cybertruck on Ozempic?
“ interestingly, a joystick mounted to an armrest jutting out from the seat. Kia doesn’t say what the joystick does, though. Looking closely at how it’s mounted, it looks like it only articulates forward and backward, not side to side.”
Um – Could it be a drive selector?
Forward for Drive, Pull back for Reverse?
What a concept!
There’s a reason drive/reverse are opposite the direction you travel on PRNDL automatics and most sequential shifters. When you accelerate you and your hand move the opposite direction, so you pull rearward while in drive and push forward while braking/reversing.
It wasn’t always that way.
Look at the Automatics in Pagoda SLs.
63-71 manufacture, so 54-62 years ago. Yes a lot of things have been standardized to a better solution in the last half century. I’m glad we picked throttle pedals instead of column levers like the model T, and pushing the turn signal stalk forward activates the high beams instead of a floor switch.
If you ever watch video of a racecar (NASCAR, WRC, time attack) with a sequential, and it’s forward-upshift, you’ll immediately see it’s ergonomically backwards.
Oddly enough heavily modified drag cars are almost always backwards halfway to the Pagoda. Reverse gate and pattern are both very common, where the pattern front to back is 321NRP, sometimes N321NRP. If you have to downshift while going down a drag strip, something is very very wrong. This also makes it easier to integrate a shift solenoid, to turn the slushbox with a manual valve body back into an actual automatic shifting transmission.
The joystick should act as both a handbrake and a shifter, with its function randomly assigned at any moment by the powertrain control module.
Those human centered mirror pods don’t look human safe.
They are Immortan Joe approved
So, a vertically oriented stick drive selector? Maybe more of them had it in the recent past, but don’t most cars still have that?
Oof, wanting joystick steering control is a terrible, terrible take. We have a driving simulator in another department showing off a steer-by-wire system, and since it’s steer by wire you can switch from the steering wheel to a joystick. The steering wheel is actually pretty good considering it’s simulated road feel, but the joystick is just plain awful.
It’s a nice job of a very concept-y concept car. I’ve seen a lot worse. My guts quietly curdle at this bit of boilerplate, though:
“[Whatever this thing’s called is] our first bold glimpse into the future of mobility.”
Said every concept car press release ever. I guess I’m mostly objecting to the “first” thing. Meaningless originalism isn’t interesting. Helium-filled hype like this is commonplace and boring. It’s the car show equivalent of calling a celebrity fast food collab a “limited-time engagement” except you don’t get any Megan Thee Stallion Hottie Sauce.
Don’t worry if you missed out. If it’s that good, it’ll come back.
Come back or gag reflex repeat?
I always flinch a little when I see “comeback sauce” on a menu. The name has one positive association and a few disgusting ones.
I hope the joystick lets me adjust front/rear power balance on the fly.
I’m kinda diggin the giant windshield and the angled window/roof treatment thing in the back. The rest of the car is hideous though. Espectially the psudo sci-fi interior treatment complete with yoke, joystick and absolutly no other controls for, well…. anything. And why is the drivers corner a different color than everything else?
But as much as I like the giant wrap over windshield, I wouldn’t want to see the bill when it inevitably meets an errant rock on teh highway.
Wanna’ make a bet that it has facial recognition cameras in it, and feeds ads to the driver’s field of vision? No one is asking for this crap.
If I’m going to drive a sci-fi car, I’d rather it not be a dystopian shitbox, but instead something that makes my life better. It should be cheaper to operate, more efficient, easier to work on, able to last my lifetime, ect.
But the C-Suite crowd are dead-set on giving us a dystopia, one of the means through the cars made available to buy.
I’m not sure why manufacturers think we want to sit in a bubble. Can’t think of the last time I opened the screen covering the moonroof in our Acura
(A moonroof that I didn’t want but the car wasn’t available without a useless hole cut in the roof)
Consider how much that moonroof added to the cost of the car, and all of the profit margin it padded in that you had to pay for…
I would if I was buying new. This was a 10 year old Acura with the “Technology Package” – which is laughable today as it says my phone is an “iPod” and the infotainment is the worse mix of tiny buttons and a joystick to run a DVD based GPS system. It was also stupid expensive when new. $35K in 2011 which is just shy of $50K in 2025 dollars.
I wanted to replace my wife’s lemon VW Jetta Sportwagon TDI. She still wanted a wagon. Wagons basically no longer exist so the choices were limited. We compromised on the Acura and it was a one-for-one swap with the TDI.
On the other hand my parents recently bought a new RAV4 Hybrid and refused to entertain any trims that had a moonroof. Caused the salesman much frustration and they ended up ordering one and waiting for delivery instead of buying off the lot.
More of that dystopian-chic aesthetic. Add it to the Cybertruck, Honda 0 saloon, Bentley EXP15, Jaguar Type 00, Nissan Hyper Urban/Hyper Touring/Hyper Force, among other hideous monstrosities that no one is asking for.
I hope Aptera gets a foothold. THAT is the sort of “style” I want: it’s functional, enhances performance, and saves money, all through an actual leapfrog in aerodynamic drag reduction(and not merely the appearance of it). Screw what some CEO wants to impose on us for the sake of distinguishing “their” brand. I want whatever car I buy to save me money while operating it, you know, so LESS of my money goes to these CEOs.
It’s so “futuristic,” it’s hideous. Maybe it’ll be a collector’s item concept in 40 years.
The front view looks like the butt. And it looks like complete ass.
This is what happens when you 3D print digital models from Cyberpunk 2077.
ETA: the more I look at it, the more it looks like a Lambo birthday cake topper.
The front view looks like butt.
100%
It’s as ugly as a Willem Dafoe movie villain.