SsangYong softens its style

SSANGYONG’S ardour for controversial styling has cooled with the updated Kyron SUV released last week – the first vehicle from the South Korean brand to get the new wave of toned-down treatment.

SsangYong Australia sales and marketing manager Brad Larkham told GoAuto that Australians were not the only nationality to find Kyron lacking in the looks department.

“Globally, it was a similar story,” he said. “Operationally, technically and quality-wise Kyron was well received but its appearance received a mixed reaction.” Mr Larkham said head office responded accordingly.

“In what I guess you’d call the changing face of SsangYong Motor Company in Korea, they quickly set about changing that particular area of weakness,” he said.

Mr Larkham said that SsangYong is pitched as a premium brand in Korea, but confessed that “we are struggling with positioning in Australia”.

“We’d like to think we’re continuing to develop a reputation as Korea’s prestige brand,” he said.

“In fact, we’re the only Korean brand that sells cars in any kind of numbers over $30,000. We’d like to put ourselves into a position where we’re not fighting away with the cheaper end of the marketplace.”

Left: Previous Kyron.

British designer Ken Greenley, who designed the Kyron, Musso and Korando, was not brought out of retirement to fix his design problem child. SsangYong, which employed ItalDesign to pen the Rexton, used in-house designers to update the Kyron.

While in a mood for a tidy-up, SsangYong got its designers to improve the much-maligned styling of the Stavic, also with a much smoother new front and rear treatment.

The Stavic, which also gets the Euro IV emissions upgrade to its 2.7-litre turbo-diesel engine, has already gone on sale although it makes its public debut at next month's Australian International Motor Show in Sydney.

Both Kyron and Stavic facelift models share the SsangYong corporate-look grille, already seen on the Rexton.

While SsangYong executives would not specify when it would be unveiled, they said that SsangYong would eventually wipe the smile off the just-released Actyon and Actyon Sport’s shark-face grille, and replace it with the more conservative corporate snout.

Mr Larkham said that he had seen new models on the drawing board in Korea and that SsangYong was not stepping away from its styling completely.

“One of the strengths of the brand is that it stands out from the crowd,” he said.

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