The first Ssangyong Chairman W luxury saloon to be imported into the UK has been shown off at Silverstone race circuit this weekend.
Ssangyong is a sponsor of the Silverstone Classic and exhibited the left-hand-drive Chairman W at the event to illustrate the breadth of its global product portfolio beyond its UK range of crossovers, SUVs and commercial vehicles.
The Chairman W is powered by a 3.6-litre straight-six petrol engine producing 246bhp at 6600rpm and 253lb ft at 4000rpm. It drives all four wheels through a Mercedes-derived seven-speed automatic transmission.
Under the skin, the Chairman W is based upon the underpinnings of an older-generation W140 Mercedes-Benz S-class, redeveloped by Ssangyong. The Chairman W is 5135mm long, 1895mm wide and 1495mm high, with a wheelbase of 2970mm.
In the car’s home market, Korea, the car sells for the equivalent of about £40,000. A long-wheelbase variant (which adds an extra 300mm to both the overall length and the wheelbase) is also sold there.
In light of the UK’s small market for luxury saloons, there are currently no plans to officially import the Chairman W alongside Ssangyong UK’s range, although company CEO Paul Williams told Autocar he is keeping an open mind and confirmed that the car shown at Silverstone will go through UK registration and type approval.
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Ex Ssangyong dealer
[quote=rdsreference]As an ex
Does not look that much worse
"The Chairman W has done very
True
To be fair, though, the W140 platform was one of Mercedes-Benz's last over-engineered platforms. It's not an awful foundation to build a luxury car on, although I'd imagine it'll be pretty heavy!
k12479, shame you cant read,
jonboy4969 - just to let
jonboy4969 - just to let k12479 off the hook, I tweaked the sentence in light of his comment. It wasn't clear that it didn't mean an older generation. So he was correct, but so are you - the Merc underpinnings have served Ssangyong well...
jonboy4969 wrote:
I can read just fine. Unlike you I can also spell and use punctuation. Much of the Korean industry has involved JVs and licensed production, the problem is a lot of the underpinnings and components are previous/old generations, combined with uninspiring and often plagiarised design cues. The Koreans have come a long way and deserve credit, but perhaps not far enough, they aren't competitive with Japan and Europe and may soon have the Chinese breathing down their necks.