W hat’s that, then?” Usually, I can answer that in one or two words. Maserati . New Astra.
Korean Qashqai. Crazy Citroen. With the new KGM Torres, it’s a bit more complicated.
“It’s a SsangYong,” I say because that’s the name the South Korean brand used to be known by. They’ve changed it to KGM. But that’s a bit convoluted and invites more queries I don’t have the answer to (ie why), so I leave it there.
“Oh, so it’s the Samsung of the car world?” “No, SsangYong, it’s different. Samsung do make cars, sort of Renaults , but this is a different company. Actually, it’s called KGM.
KGM Torres”. By that point my interlocutor, who’s not as invested in automotive curiosities as I am, wants to know how long it will take to get to the recycling centre (which is itself a rebranded tip). “However long, we will be in comfort” is my guarantee.
Just to fill you in, SsangYong has had such a rough time financially over the past couple of decades and been bought and sold successively by General Motors of America, Shanghai Automotive of China and Mahindra of India that its present owners, KGM (Korean Green Mobility), dumped the SsangYong name entirely. What the Torres actually is a slightly old-school SUV, which places comfort first. It comes with a petrol engine or as a pure battery electric vehicle (ie no hybrids), the KGM Torres EVX.
Testing the internal combustion engine powered one back-to-back with the BEV simply highlighted how smooth and near-sil.