The TCR-spec Kia cee’d built and developed by STARD was officially unveiled today in a press conference at Mettet’s Circuit Jules Tacheny that hosts the final event of TCR Benelux.
Based on the road going Kia cee´d 5-door model, the racing car is equipped with the 2.0 L ‘Theta II’ turbocharged direct injection engine – one of the newest developments from the Hyundai/Kia R&D centre in Namyang, carbon fibre aerodynamic kit and in-house developed motorsport systems.

STARD CEO, Michael Sakowicz, said: “As in any other of our projects one target is clearly set above all others: to develop a race winning car. We have proven our knowhow and the competitiveness of our cars in rally, touring car and world rallycross supercar projects. We at STARD are exceptionally passionate in everything we do.”

President Manfred Stohl added: “We have been working on this project since July 2015. It has been a long and hard work, but today we begin to be paid off. We are already in touch with a few teams that are interested to run the car from next year, and some of them are professional and very experienced.”

The development stage is completed and the car has covered over 3000 km of testing, plus separate dyno and bench tests for the engine. The temporary homologation is in the final approval stage while testing will continue until the end of the year.
Deliveries will begin as from January 2017and STARD plans to produce twenty cars before the start of the season.
All cars will be equipped with a sequential racing gearbox, motorsport ECU and FIA FT3 safety fuel tank; the prices will range from 98,945 € up to 122,000 € in the full-spec variant.