No sooner has the KGM Torres arrived and an Asian hornet…. scary…. decides to perch itself on the bumper, for quite some time. We discover they eat bees and the car is parked next to a beautiful lavender bush full of them.
It’s enough to make my son Henry (8) rush inside and shut the door and windows. Thankfully we don’t see this insect again. On another occasion, as I’m about to reverse off the driveway, another insect, we think it’s a Maybug flies at the vehicle and promptly rests underneath the windscreen wipers.
Try as we might to shoo it off, it does not want to leave. Apparently these insects are common in this part of the world between May and July. When the car was delivered it had been valeted. Could it be the scented polish that attracts these insects or do they simply like the Torres?
Anyway, striking design is vital for a vehicle to stand out from the crowd. This is something that KGM has carefully considered with its new Torres SUV. The company, formerly known as Ssangyong, has crafted a car that looks sufficiently different to catch the attention.
I don’t know of any other SUV that has grab handles on the bonnet or a grille in the style of the Torres. It even has a daring dash of red on it. Finished in black with its privacy glass, externally it reminds me of a smaller version of an American SUV, such as one you might find in the President’s cavalcade.
The cut of the side windows remind me of the old Land Rovers or may be even a Hummer.
Inside it fits five occupants with ease and the boot is pretty big, large enough for the luggage we need for a weekend away in Cheltenham.
The interior is black and the black leather seats are fairly comfortable. I like the bronze effect around the dash and this is followed through with the choice of thread on the upholstery. The centre console seems to control most things: temperature, radio, sat nav. This is frustrating for me. In older/other vehicles climate control is independent so you don’t have to wait for the technology to load up.
It’s quite a lethargic vehicle, especially when using the intelligent cruise control. If it comes up to a slower vehicle which forces the car to slow down from say 70 to 60mph and you then move out to overtake, it takes too long to regain that 10mph meaning that it has to be overridden.
There are paddleshifts either side of the steering wheel but the problem for me is that this isn’t a very efficient vehicle – with a range of around 340 miles per tank – which is about 30 to 40mpg depending on driving style. So therefore I am not minded to be heavy on the throttle.
As a family bus it does its job competently but I must complain about the sat nav, which in my experience is terrible. It seems to enjoy overcomplicating a route and as a result wasting fuel. Punching in the postcode to find a pre-booked parking space through yourparkingspace.co.uk takes us all round the back streets of Cheltenham when it doesn’t need to.
It does the same again when returning home via Oxford where it keeps insisting on taking us in the wrong direction. It repeatedly speaks of roundabouts where there aren’t any and the volume is too low and I can’t figure out how to increase it. All of which results in it being a very frustrating system that I feel is best left alone. It causes no end of arguments between my wife and I, which is not what I need when I’m meant to be relaxing.
Facts at a glance
Price: £35,000 to £48,000
Engine: 1.5-litre
0 to 60mph: 10.8secs
Top speed: 117mph
Economy: 31 to 33mpg
Power: 161bhp
Tim Saunders is a travel writer and photographer regularly contributing to publications with a combined audience exceeding 100,000 readers. You can read more from Tim on his website travelwriter.biz and www.testdrives.biz.
Add a comment