KGM Torres review

From £36,7495

Korea’s off-roader specialist enters a new era with a fresh brand identity

Japan’s keiretsu – those widely diversified industrial conglomerates like Mitsubishi and Sumitomo – are globally renowned. But South Korea has similar ones, called chaebol.

In 2022, one such chaebol, the KG Group (which makes products as different as steel, fertiliser, renewable energy and, until fairly recently, fried chicken) bought ailing native specialist car maker Ssangyong out of receivership. The group’s new automotive arm – KG Mobility, or KGM for short – promptly sprang into being, the Ssangyong brand was dropped and the subject of this road test, the KGM Torres, became one of the first all-new cars to emerge under the grand new auspices.

This will remain a specialist SUV brand, the new management says, with a focus on tough, rugged, versatile family cars – although those cars will move over time towards wider integration of electric and electrified powertrains, and more advanced technology besides. Now to find out how that all starts.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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KGM Torres review 2025 02 panning

The Torres sits in between KGM’s Qashqai-sized Korando and the seven-seat, ladder-on-frame Rexton SUVs. At a little over 4.7m long, it’s proportioned like a Honda CR-V, with an even boxier silhouette, and there’s a surprising amount of visual character to its design that’s quite easy to warm to.

It’s built on a steel monocoque chassis designed to accommodate both combustion engines and electric drive. The regular Torres is powered by the same transverse-mounted, 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine found in the smaller Korando and Tivoli. 

There’s a fake bulge for a spare wheel (but only the AWD version gets one) and a handle that makes this look like a side-hinged ‘tailgate’ (but it isn’t). That’s the Torres in microcosm
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

That engine makes 161bhp and 207lb ft, which can meet either the front wheels or, as tested, all four via a six-speed Aisin automatic gearbox. It’s not a great deal of motivating power for a car this size, especially when it’s the only combustion engine available; some rivals comfortably exceed 200bhp. The all-electric version, the Torres EVX, goes some way to addressing that, offering 204bhp, but it has only a front-drive, single-motor layout.

KGM provides the Torres with some off-road readiness, though. The car has SUV-specific Hankook all-season tyres, and all-independent coil-spring suspension with sufficiently long travel to enable approach and departure angles of around 20deg, and 195mm of ground clearance. That’s better than the mid-sized SUV class norm, though only marginally so.

Meanwhile, the car is rated to tow 1500kg on a braked trailer – another area where it probably should do more as an extra-capable choice.

INTERIOR

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KGM Torres review 2025 10 dash

The side-by-side arrangement of the flatscreen instrumentation and infotainment screens, and the selection of physical controls on the steering wheel spokes, give you a strong clue to the Torres’s country of origin. There’s certainly more than a passing similarity with Hyundai/Kia design philosophy here, if not the same tactile quality.

The driving position is of about typical height for a mid-sized SUV and there’s a two-tier centre console with plenty of storage space and a downsized drive selector rocker.

Silver trim across the doors and dash has a blue ambient lighting inlay that appears after dark. In daylight, it doesn’t look or feel especially appealing, though.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

The steering wheel spokes give you some physical controls for key ADAS (adaptive cruise control, active lane keeping) and audio functions, but still not enough of the former in particular. To disable the speed limit reminder and driver monitoring buzzers, for example, it’s a several-tier dive into the touchscreen, which isn’t especially responsive or well laid out.

Rear space is fairly class typical: meaner than some for leg room but more generous for head room. Visibility from the driver’s seat is commendable, past fairly skinny A- and B-pillars and over straight-sided body proportions.

KGM advertises 703 litres of available boot space and our test car mostly backed that up, proving well able to swallow bulky loads. We measured seats-up loading length at 980mm and width at a minimum 1050mm between the rear wheel arches. Both figures beat a VW Tiguan by a significant distance.

 

Multimedia - 2.5 stars

The standard 12.3in infotainment system is predominantly touchscreen-operated. That it takes a notable amount of time to boot on start up is your first clue that its responsiveness isn’t going to be stellar. Its main navigation list menu structure is displayed on the left of the screen, making it harder to reach in a right-hand-drive car.

A swipe-out menu for air-con controls can be accessed from the right-hand margin of the screen; another, with selectable shortcuts including drive mode options, from the upper margin. But neither tends to appear at the first time of swiping or makes little adjustments as easy as they could be.

KGM offers TomTom navigation and a wireless phone-charging pad on upper-level K40-spec cars, but neither is worth the upgrade. The nav is slow to load and a little obstinate to program, and the pad is mostly pointless since wired-only smartphone mirroring means you’re likely to plug in anyway.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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KGM Torres review 2025 20 engine bay

We identified this 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol powertrain as a potential vulnerability earlier on. So it proves, but it is less about how much accessible performance it produces and more about the robustness of that power.

Acceleration runs for the Autocar road test are measured as two-way averages, usually to correct for wind resistance. In the Torres, however, we noted considerably poorer performance on the second ‘return’ legs of our runs, which the car evidenced on two occasions and in different places. At its quickest, the car managed 0-60mph in a whisker under 10sec; but on its second run, that slowed to 12.7sec, and it was slower again on its third. This is much more likely to be the outcome of software calibration intended to protect the powertrain hardware than any adverse effects of heat or load on that hardware. But it’s not something that most modern piston-engined cars demonstrate so readily and doesn’t give you the utmost confidence for the broader capability of the car.

On the road, the car’s performance typically reflects much better on it. It may not be quick against the clock but that 1.5-litre turbo petrol is quiet at a cruise and, mated to a six-speed gearbox with plenty of CVT-like slushy delivery, it creates at least respectable accessible torque on part throttle.

It isn’t keen on holding ratios at power even in ‘manual mode’, or revving quickly, so we couldn’t extract in-gear acceleration figures. But this is a powertrain you could live with, without feeling particularly good about.

RIDE & HANDLING

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KGM Torres review 2025 21 front cornering

In many ways, the Torres reminds you of SUVs of 20 or 30 years ago. Compared with the average class rival, it feels softly sprung, and slightly exaggerated and permissive in its body movements. Its on-road grip levels and chassis response are gentler and slighter than the norm. 

On balance, it probably rides and handles like a bigger car than it actually is, though never in such a pronounced fashion as to actually get in its own way too much. It exhibits noticeable body roll when cornering, but not enough at normal road speeds to undermine the car’s steering authority or stability. There’s a bit of heave and toss about the primary ride on country roads, and an unchecked fidget about its secondary ride around town and over sharper inputs, neither of which makes it feel very attentively damped.

The car’s Hankook all-season tyres grip dry asphalt respectably well but struggled somewhat on MIRA’s special high-grip wet surfaces, where it recorded quite poor outright stopping distances.

Its traction and stability controls seem well tuned in road driving but its ADAS functions less so. The lane keeping system tends to grab at the wheel at lower speeds more than you expect; the adaptive cruise control is slow to respond to changes in the car’s environment; and the driver monitoring and speed limit reminder systems are so frequent and unexplained with their beeps and bongs as to be seriously irksome.

Offroad - 3.5 stars

The Torres isn’t the half-price Land Cruiser or Defender that its styling hints at, yet it still copes fairly well with medium-duty off-roading.

Its all-season tyres and four-wheel drive system generate fairly strong traction on gravel, so you needn’t use the ‘locked 4x4’ mode until you hit wet grass or mud, when there’s sufficient ground clearance and wheel articulation, and good enough accessible torque and low-speed drivability, to deal with medium-sized moguls, troughs and fairly steep muddy slopes easily.

KGM Torres news

New KGM Actyon SUV is 161bhp Skoda Kodiaq rival
New KGM Actyon SUV is 161bhp Skoda Kodiaq rival
KGM to launch 300-mile 4x4 EV pick-up in early 2025
KGM to launch 300-mile 4x4 EV pick-up in early 2025
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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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KGM Torres review 2025 01 front tracking

After the arrival of brands like Jaecoo and MG, KGM has competition as a budget brand that Ssangyong never really contended with. But a starting price of £36,749 doesn’t really let the Torres engage with those Chinese-made options. Neither does this car have the material quality you might expect to pay extra for. 

At more than £43,000 after options and no doubt partly due to weak residual values, our range-topping AWD test car was actually £70 per month more expensive than a Toyota RAV4 PHEV on like-for-like finance terms.

Unlike with the Toyota, Torres owners shouldn’t expect meaningful fuel economy savings. The car recorded a barely passable 35mpg on our touring test, was far less frugal around town and posted a conspicuously disappointing test average of just 29.7mpg.

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VERDICT

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KGM Torres review 2025 26 front static

There’s a cheery toughness about the KGM Torres that catches the eye. However, it isn’t entirely the rough-and-tumble operator it at first appears - and nor is it a bargain by the standards of 2025.

It has the cargo space for bulky hauling and works moderately well off road. But this powertrain feels weedy at times and lacks efficiency. Its cabin has some style and colour but little quality; its digital technology is short of intuitive usability; and its driver assistance systems irk and distract.

It’s a car without a really convincing selling point, then, particularly so beyond the superficial.

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 Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault 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.

New KGM Torres cars in stock

 KGM Torres 1.5 K30 Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr
£34,490
12miles
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5
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KGM Torres 1.5 K30 Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr
£31,995
10miles
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5
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KGM Torres 1.5 K40 Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr
£32,995
19miles
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5
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KGM Torres 1.5 K40 Auto AWD Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr
2025
£35,499
5miles
Petrol
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5
View detailsopens in a new tab
KGM Torres 1.5 K40 Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr
£33,495
10miles
Petrol
Automatic
5
View detailsopens in a new tab
KGM Torres 1.5 K30 Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr
£37,299
2miles
Petrol
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5
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KGM Torres 1.5 K40 Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr
£39,749
5miles
Petrol
Automatic
5
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KGM Torres 1.5 K40 Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr
£37,495
25miles
Petrol
Automatic
5
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KGM Torres 1.5 K40 Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr
£33,664
14miles
Petrol
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5
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