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The artist formerly known as Ssangyong brings toughness, capability and value together in one flatbed package

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For the companies now aiming to carve out a foothold at the value end of the UK’s boom-and-bust pickup truck market, a brand name that people will recognise would seem to be a rather large asset.

This is no longer the niche that is occupied by the Toyota Hilux, nor really the Ford Ranger or Volkswagen Amarok, with neither a Mitsubishi nor a Nissan to be seen either. Pick-ups of that kind have now either left the stage entirely or migrated well beyond the kind of territory in which you can go shopping for a fully-fitted, double-cab, four-wheel-drive vehicle that (after VAT, assuming you’re buying on like-for-like terms with a family SUV) can be yours for a usefully less than £40,000.

It’s a little ironic, perhaps, that the company behind the KGM Musso used to have a brand name that at least some buyers might have known. Ssangyong was never the most celebrated of Korea’s car makers. Even so, it might just have been enough to better lift the outfit now known as KGM a little further above the value melee in which it now finds itself, as other Asian brands like Maxus pile into a space where Isuzu still fights on.

The Musso certainly has some pretty no-nonsense credentials with which to go about making its reputation afresh, however. Ostensibly a flatbed version of the ladder-on-frame Rexton SUV, it offers a double cab layout, mechanical locking four-wheel drive and very modern-seeming equipment levels, from an entry price (after VAT, remember) of only just above £37,000 – a figure that won’t even get you into a 4WD Skoda Karoq crossover.

The Musso has other claims to unequalled capability and usefulness besides, to which we will come. The question is, is it also rather too rough and ready to be worth taking out of the construction yard and making room for on your family driveway?

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DESIGN & STYLING

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KGM Musso front static2

Ssangyong won a standing among private buyers for making tough, capable, ‘proper off-roaders’ ready for hard work and heavy-duty towing. It’s clear that KGM wants to continue to play to that audience, and its one and only pick-up, the Musso, is the toughest vehicle it makes.

That 'musso' translates from its manufacturer’s mother tongue as ‘rhinoceros’ tells you much of what you need to know about the vehicle. This is a ‘one-tonne’ flatbed made for especially tough work and heavy loads. Sitting on the same chassis as the Rexton, it features independent double-wishbone suspension at the front and a five-link axle at the rear, with coil spring suspension all around, rather than more flatbed-typical leaf springs at the rear.

Power comes from a 2.2-litre turbo diesel engine whose outputs have risen since its launch in 2018, now sitting at 199bhp of peak power at 3800rpm and 325lb ft of torque (the latter only if you plump for the six-speed automatic gearbox; it’s pegged at 295lb ft in the six-speed manual). Selectable four-wheel drive and a low-range ratio are also present.

The Musso can be had in ‘standard-bed’ or range-topping ‘long-bed’ forms - and it’s the latter that gives the vehicle its particular claim to fame. Because while plenty of rival pick-ups are rated either to tow 3500kg on a braked trailer or haul in excess of a tonne of payload, the Musso is the only one on the market rated to do both at the same time. It has a maximum ‘gross combination weight’ of 6900kg; the Ranger that figure is 6400kg and for the Isuzu D-Max it’s 6000kg.

We tested it as a standard-bed automatic in upper-level Saracen trim.

INTERIOR

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KGM Musso dash

The Musso’s relationship with the Rexton gives it a ready-made fascia and wider cabin built to modern car standards, and so even when new back in 2018, it avoided the coarse material quality of some pick-ups surprisingly effectively.

There’s loads of space in front and a competitive amount of it across the three-seater double-cab second row. Some pick-ups are roomier for second-row travellers, but none is palatial, and the Musso provides the kind of space you would expect back there in a medium-sized SUV, which is pretty class-typical.

The Musso got an interior refresh in 2023, including an upgrade for the touchscreen infotainment system and a wider refinement of the fascia design. The car’s old heating and ventilation console, with its chunky physical switchgear, was at that time replaced by a more expensive-looking capacitive control panel. Mercifully, it hasn’t made operation overly fiddly.

At the top of the dashboard, there’s now the obligatory tablet-style infotainment screen with its 12.3in display. It offers only wired smartphone mirroring connectivity and fitted sat-nav by TomTom that looks and feels a little mannered and basic by the standards of the best factory systems, but the usability of the system as a whole is respectable.

Entry-grade Rebel-spec Mussos get artificial leather-effect seats, with nappa leather coming on Saracen-grade cars like our test car. They’re comfortable enough over distance, although lacking in some adjustment potential.

In the cargo bay, accessories like ‘sports bars’ (those steel bars that sit just behind the cabin and look a bit like rollover protection but aren’t) and an electronic load-bed roller cover are optional extras. 

The standard Musso’s load bed is 1.3 metres long, so it’s shorter than that of the Hilux or Ranger, although still just about long enough to carry a standard Euro pallet.

The long-bed version extends the load bed beyond 1.6 metres, however.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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KGM Musso panning

The Musso’s turbo diesel four-pot makes the slightly gruff, crotchety first impression that you might expect of it on start up and at low speeds, but it soon settles down to an acceptable standard for cruising refinement, considering the territory we’re in here.

Our six-speed automatic test truck's engine had some clatter and thrash about it, but little more than a Hilux or D-Max might make.

The auto 'box eases the Musso into motion smoothly and without any shunting or uncouthness and keeps the engine working in its torque-centred sweet spot even at wider throttle openings.

For outright torque, the Musso doesn’t quite feel as strong as the gruntiest ‘lifestyle pick-ups’, but it has plenty of usable, accessible pulling power and a gutsiness about it that makes for an assurance under power that you don’t get from every flatbed. An equivalent £40,000 diesel SUV would be quicker, needless to say, but, considering its brief, the Musso’s certainly no liability or embarrassment.

Whichever version you buy, the Musso is sufficiently heavy for the UK's specific light commercial vehicle (LCV) speed limits to apply to it, which means 50mph is your limit on single-carriageway roads and 60mph on non-motorway dual carriageways. Not all pick-ups fall foul of this threshold; only those with a homologated kerb weight greater than 2040kg.

We didn’t have occasion to test the Musso's off-road capabilities, but it comes on all-terrain tyres, which ought to make short work of muddy tracks and wet fields. 

The standard-bed version has approach and departure angles both around 20deg and ground clearance of 215mm, all of which are competitive for a pick-up.

The long-bed version stretches both the wheelbase and rear overhang of the Musso, however (and, we would expect, compromises some rear suspension travel for its necessarily firmer rear coil springs), so it probably shouldn’t be the version you choose with tougher off-roading in mind.

For real-world economy: in unloaded condition, our short-bed test car returned an average MPG figure in the low 30s, dipping into the 20s in urban running and rising to around 35 in steady cruising, which is what you would expect of a vehicle like this.

RIDE & HANDLING

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KGM Musso offroad

There's just a little bit of crudity of feel, cloying leadenness of control weight and excitability about the Musso’s ride and handling - but probably only about as much as you would expect of a ladder-frame pick-up aiming for a buyer who is used to more of a rough-and-ready workhorse than some 'lifestyle' flatbed with delusions of sophistication. 

A medium-heavy steering rack meets your grasp as you pull away from rest, which requires a bit of physical effort to operate at times; but which also has intuitive positivity and self-centring, communicates fairly well, escapes much of a sense of inaccuracy and vagueness around the straight-ahead and isn’t unpleasant to use.

The Musso’s all-terrain tyres don’t drum on the road and offer a grip level that’s fairly stout, and they allow the truck to corner and stop in hurried fashion when it needs to.

It doesn’t roll excessively when cornering or pitch hard when braking.

Instead, it’s the restless fidget of the Musso’s ride that is its biggest dynamic bugbear. It doesn’t take much of an uneven surface to make the car pogo a little over its firmly-tuned rear coil springs, and there isn’t much compliance to the ride on smooth roads either. 

Although it would likely be dependent on how much load the Musso happened to be carrying, of course, the car’s shortage of settled ride comfort could become wearing over longer drives.

The stiff sidewalls of those all-terrain tyres, meanwhile, also tend to conduct quite a lot of noise and vibration from the road up into the cabin.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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KGM Musso front corner

For small business owners, sole traders, fleet managers and those for whom VAT needn’t figure, the cheapest Musso, with its manual gearbox, double-cab layout and four-wheel drive, can be snapped up for less than £31,000. That makes it significantly cheaper, at list price, than an equivalent D-Max or Maxus T60.

The entry-rung Rebel version isn’t meanly equipped, either, coming with six airbags, electric windows, a reversing camera and heated front seats - and escaping the steel wheels and plastic bumpers that you can find on cheaper pickups.

A Saracen-spec model will run to the far side of £40,000 (for those who are paying VAT, at least) but sweetens the offering with black-painted alloy wheels, nappa leather seats, dual-zone climate control, LED headlamps, cruise control and a full roster of electronic active safety systems.

A fully-loaded, long-bed Saracen+ with metallic paint could extend beyond £44k with a few dealer accessories fitted, but that’s in a market in which even a mid-tier Ranger Wildtrak can easily run beyond £50k.

KGM’s manufacturer warranty cover extends to five years or 100,000 miles, so it’s one of the stronger ones offered on any LCV, save for Toyota’s (which can extend all the way to 10 years with manufacturer servicing).

VERDICT

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KGM Musso static

The Musso isn’t the sort of vehicle to rekindle an appetite for pick-ups in a UK market that is now reverting to the long-term norm, with BIK tax changes having taken the wind out of their sails. But it is a marginally more pleasant, better-mannered, better-equipped and easier-to-drive pick-up than it needs to be, given the price that KGM is asking for it.

It's also capable and tough, with an appetite for heavy hauling and off-roading that exceeds the reach of its position in life. And while that toughness does prevent it from riding with the near-car comfort of some modern pick-ups, the Musso is certainly not so rough-hewn as to penalise an owner who likes the value it clearly represents and just wants to get their money’s worth in mixed daily use.

That idea clearly wouldn’t be for everyone, but it would be at least marginally more sensible than, say, seeking to keep an actual rhinoceros in a hutch in your garden, training it to come to heel and then taking it out for an evening walk every day. 

Most of us have only got room for a little bit of Musso in our lives, and this KGM brings more than enough.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce PhantomTesla RoadsterAriel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren SennaRenault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.