The KG Mobility Rexton New Arena has been revealed as a refreshed SsangYong Rexton, complete with an overhauled interior.
The Rexton New Arena sees a similar set of updates to the related Musso.
SsangYong Australia says it hasn’t finalised a local launch yet for either model, but is estimating one for the fourth quarter of 2023.
It also has yet to officially announce a change to KG Mobility branding in this market, though a trademark has been registered.
Inside, there’s a larger 12.3-inch touchscreen infotainment system jutting out of the dashboard. Being considerably larger than the outgoing model’s 8.0-inch unit, it has necessitated a redesign of the dashboard.
The air vents are now horizontally oriented and “hidden” within a trim element stretching across much of the dashboard. You can adjust the climate control settings via new touch-capacitive switchgear.
A 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster remains, and other elements like the shifter are unchanged.
Four different interior colourways will be offered in Korea.
In addition to a standard black interior, there’s one that pairs a black dashboard with red seats, one with tan seats and a two-tone tan and brown dashboard, and one with a khaki-coloured dashboard and seats.
Externally, the “diamond-shaped” grille flanked by full-LED four-beam projector headlights with welcome/goodbye animations and dynamic indicators.
The Rexton also features new wheel designs.
It continues to use a 2.2-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder engine producing 150kW of power and 441Nm of torque, mated with an eight-speed automatic transmission.
The list of active safety and driver assist features includes adaptive cruise control, lane-centring, lane-keep assist, autonomous emergency braking, leading vehicle departure alert, driver attention monitoring, and automatic high-beam.
Local pricing and specifications will be available closer to launch. We’re hoping adaptive cruise control and lane centring will arrive Down Under – the current Rexton doesn’t offer these features, and while the Musso gained them last year in Korea, these changes weren’t applied locally.
SsangYong sold 1467 Rextons in Australia last year. While that saw it outsold by the D90 from fellow challenger brand LDV, which recorded 3183 sales, it was up 97.7 per cent year over year.
That was the second largest improvement in the large SUV segment, behind only the D90 at 102 per cent.
