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SSANGYONG will head onto the beaten track when it launches the
Mercedes-Benz look-a-like Chairman luxury sedan on the Australian
market around mid-year.
And it will follow that up with a
seven-seat people-mover currently codenamed A100, which will be
launched at the Sydney motor show in October.
They will
join a range that is already expanding from the Rexton off-road
wagon to include the Musso Sports dual cab utility and the
Korando short wheelbase off-roader over the next couple of
months.
The Chairman is intended to line up directly
against the Ford Fairlane and Holden Statesman, with pricing
tipped to start around $57,000.
But Ssangyong won’t stop
there, with a long wheelbase version also in the pipeline with
pricing pitched just under $100,000.
The local launch of
the South Korean luxury car will give Holden a preview of what
the Statesman can expect when it goes on-sale in Korea – as a
Daewoo – early in 2005.
Ssangyong – the smallest South
Korean manufacturer – has been best known for its four-wheel
drive and off-road vehicles, but has also sold the Benz-based
Chairman in the booming Korean luxury market since 1998.
A
new generation of the rear-wheel drive car was launched in
January in South Korea, still aping Mercedes-Benz looks and
underpinned by the platform from the 1985-1996 W124 E-class.
The
two models coming to Australia should be the Cm600S and the
range-topping Cm600L, both sharing the same 3.2-litre
six-cylinder engine producing 162kW at 5500rpm, and 310Nm at
3750rpm.
But, as shown by the chart below, they vary by a
significant 300mm in terms of both wheelbase and overall length.
The LWB version is also 50kg heavier.
 They
are also better equipped than the six-cylinder base model
versions of the Fairlane and Statesman with standard
electronically controlled suspension, leather interior and power
everything.
The chairman of local Ssangyong distributor
Rapson Australia, Russell Burling, told GoAuto he expected to
sell just 50 of the short wheelbase Chairmans per year and no
more than 10 LWBs, mostly accounted for by the hotel trade. That
compares to 5424 Statesman/Caprice and 2535 Fairlane/LTD sales in
2003 here.
"It will be a limited volume for us we
believe, but it is available to us and we think it helps with the
brand image," Mr Burling said.
"It’s a major
player in the Korean luxury car market … it’s high quality,
it’s driveability is Mercedes-Benz, it’s based on a
Mercedes-Benz platform."
Mr Burling bullishly
dismissed the perception the car was simply a cheap South Korean
copy of an old Benz.
"I think the car is a lot better
than that, certainly I think you will be surprised," he
said.
"I guess you could say a Fairlane or a
Statesman is an imitation of Falcon or a Commodore.
"This
is not. This is a luxury car. They wouldn’t make a limo out of
it and sell it to a lot of the hotels around Asia unless it was a
pretty good car."
Mr Burling revealed that the plans
to sell the Statesman in South Korea had prompted Ssangyong to
send one of its directors to Australia to drive the local
product.
"He went away smiling … I think they were
concerned about Statesman in Korea because they don’t know
pricing and positioning yet, but I think their feeling was it
will need a fair bit of work to be accepted in the Korean
market," Mr Burling said.
"We like a hard ride
and low profile tyres in Australia but that’s probably going to
be unacceptable on Korean roads."
The A100 will be
renamed when it is launched in South Korea around the end of
March or the start of April, offering seven seats and 2.7-litre
common-rail turbo-diesel power mated to a five-speed tiptronic
automatic gearbox.
Based on the same platform as the
Chairman, it will also offer the choice of rear-wheel drive or
all-wheel drive configurations, although no raised ride height or
low range. Ssangyong Australia plans to pitch it in the
$40,000-$50,000 bracket.
"If someone asked how big is
the target, it’s a case of how long is a piece of string,
because that type of product has never been available in
Australia before," Mr Burling said.
"It’s
probably the first cross-over SUV MPV that will be on the market
here.
"It takes seven passengers and their luggage. I
don’t know of another vehicle rear-drive or four-wheel drive
that’s able to do that."
HOW THEY COMPARE
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