The KGM Motors UK dealer network is getting the brand’s first new car that has been developed since the South Korean industrial conglomerate KG Group acquired SsangYong in 2022, and the early signs are positive.
The Actyon SUV has been “completely crashed into the options list and loaded” to offer immense value to UK consumers for its £36,995 price, according to KGM UK sales director Clive Messenger, and it is a great sign of a exciting future for the vehicle manufacturer.
“We’ve got a car that is equal to the best selling SUV in the UK (the Kia Sportage), and most importantly, the price of our car is going to be significantly cheaper… We’re about £2,300 lower than the best selling vehicle in this class.”
The KGM Motors UK dealer network is getting the brand’s first new car that has been developed since the South Korean industrial conglomerate KG Group acquired SsangYong in 2022, and the early signs are positive.
The Actyon SUV has been “completely crashed into the options list and loaded” to offer immense value to UK consumers for its £36,995 price, according to KGM UK sales director Clive Messenger, and it is a great sign of a exciting future for the vehicle manufacturer.
“We’ve got a car that is equal to the best selling SUV in the UK (the Kia Sportage), and most importantly, the price of our car is going to be significantly cheaper… We’re about £2,300 lower than the best selling vehicle in this class.”
The rebrand of the franchised network from SsangYong to KGM was done in just four months last year. Yet given the time and effort involved in establishing a new brand, particularly at a time when numerous new entrants from Asia are appearing, the company is very open about its past – its website states KGM was formerly SsangYong and UK managing director Kevin Griffin says the dealers like their prospective buyers to know that the brand has been here for years.
“The tie up with SsangYong, keeping that there, has kept us out of the mix, because the majority of people did recognise that SsangYong was South Korean. So keeping the KGM SsangYong turnaround in all of our adverts has kept us out of the Chinese brand fight.”
Griffin concedes that rebranding will have set back consumer awareness of the car manufacturer, which was already a niche brand, hence the need to be open and honest. The strategy makes even more sence given that KGM dealerships will be retailing used SsangYong models for years to come yet.
The UK dealer network has been growing steadily since KGM’s takeover of SsangYong and it’s now at 73 sales points. In time Griffin (pictured) wants to increase this to 80 to get national coverage, filling some open points in North Wales, around Glasgow and in the South East of England.
He says the dealers coming to the brand are quite a mix now that KGM is not so heavily focused on 4×4 capability, and particularly as companies such as Ford and Renault have been reducing their own network scale.
Many like the fact that KGM is quite a simple setup, and the 35-strong team at its Swindon headquarters are easy to get hold of and willing to listen. In 2024, in addition to the annual conference and quarterly meetings, the KGM UK directors went on a week’s road trip doing regional meetings to allow all parties to share what needs to improve quickly, what could change in the coming months and what would take a year or more to improve.
More regional meetings will be arranged for franchise owners this April. “People don’t like to stick their head above the parapet when there’s 120 people at a conference, but when you’re in a room where there’s 20 or 30 that you know because you’re all from the same area you’re happy to say ‘well I don’t like that’.
Griffin said the team has a level of comfort from seeing the investment being put into the car manufacturer by KG Group. They are making progress, and Actyon is the first full KG-developed car.
For the medium-term, KGM dealerships are being positioned to tap into more parts of the market. Alongside the Actyon launch next month, they have the first full year of supplies of the Torres EVX, the first fully electric car from KGM and repriced below £40,000, plus an electric pick-up truck, badged 0100, is on the way later this year, and a KR10 SUV in 2026.
Hybrid-powered SUVs are around the corner too, as KGM’s strategic partnership with China’s BYD will expand to encompass plug-in hybrid and self-charging hybrid technology.
Korando, which was pulled out last year in fear of overlap with Torres, will be reintroduced this year at the request of the dealer network.
Responding to the suggestion that a network of former SsangYong dealers, who long specialised in diesel 4x4s, doesn’t sound like the most experienced with electric vchicles, Griffin counters that some of the newer recruits bring learnings from representing other brands that have had EVs for several years. And he believes they have opportunities to point buyers towards the more affordable KGM Torres EVX if they baulk at the cost of some mainstream brand EVs.
In any case, while more than a million internal combustion engined new cars get sold annually in the UK the team at KGM UK are confident their cars will find buyers.
KGM UK, which is an independent distributor owned by Gibraltar-based Bassedone Automotive Group rather than an OEM’s subsidiary, has deliberately kept itself below the DfT’s small volume derogation threshold of 2,500 cars and 2,500 LCVs to evade the ZEV Mandate threat of punative fines, and it will continue to do so in 2025.
“The challenge is that locks you into a number, but it also gives us the opportunity to see what the market is going to go before we need to make a decision to push above those numbers,” says Griffin.
Sales director Clive Messenger adds that it is important “to step away from the bloodbath” of the DfT’s mandate. Nevertheless, even within this strategy KGM’s new vehicle sales grew 10% in 2024, 19% in 2023 and 23% in 2022.
“We’ve been quietly getting on with things in the background and helping to grow organically our sales operation, through ourselves and through our dealer partners, to make it a successful business in the UK,” Messenger adds.
The long-term ambition is to reach a 1% market share, which would equate to around 20,000 annual new vehicle sales, and that will be done “at a nice steady pace”, he said, rather than throw away profit.
The proposition for KGM is to remain “a little bit different” and good value for money in a market where so many brands are going mainstream or premium, according to Clive Messenger, sales director, and the 8% drop in 2024’s retail market was a challenge given retail’s huge importance to KGM.
