SsangYong Motor to be rebranded as KG Mobility 

Apart from serving as a means of being recognized by customers, an automaker’s name also occasionally brings opportunities for a fresh start. SsangYong Motor is going for the latter, as it will be carrying on under the KG Mobility name moving forward. 

SsangYong Motor leaves behind the name it carried for 35 years

Korea Herald reports that the change was announced in the closing weeks of December 2022 by Kwak Jae-sun, chairman of the KG Group that won the bid to acquire 61.86 percent of the troubled South Korean automaker’s shares. 

“The name SsangYong Motor has a fandom with good memories, but it also has a painful image,” he said. “From now, all SsangYong cars will come out to the world under the name of KG.” 

Shareholders will need to approve the new name at a scheduled meeting in March. Once finalized, the name change marks the end of the SsangYong Motor brand that has endured for the last 35 years. More importantly, it also signals the start of the automaker’s expansion into other mobility options such as electric vehicles and autonomous driving. 

There's no word on how the name change will affect SsangYong's current offerings such as the Tivoli subcompact crossover

Kwak admits that the decision to change SsangYong’s corporate identity was an extremely difficult one. But even with the effort to rehabilitate the public’s perception of SsangYong, he gave assurances that the automaker’s history will not change. 

It remains to be seen how SsangYong’s current model lineup will be affected by the KG Mobility era. Apart from the Tivoli, XLV, Korando, Rexton, and Musso nameplates, SsangYong launched the Torres SUV in 2022.  

Widely regarded as Korea’s oldest automaker, SsangYong was founded as Dong-hwan Motor in 1954. It went through several name changes until becoming SsangYong Motor in 1988. The company had a tumultuous history over the next three and a half decades as it was passed from Daewoo Group of Korea to China’s SAIC Motor before settling with India’s Mahindra & Mahindra and eventually becoming bankrupt by 2020.

The Torres midsize SUV launched in 2022 was the last SsangYong-branded vehicle

Following a long search for buyers and a failed takeover bid by Edison Motor, SsangYong was eventually acquired by chemical and steel company KG Group after the former’s corporate rehabilitation plan was approved by the Seoul Bankruptcy Court in August 2022.  

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