KEEPING IT SIMPLE

ANY family motorist looking for a seven-seater car with bags of interior space and towing capacity of 3,800kg which also has four-wheel-drive on tap and crucially won't cost an arm and leg to buy should seriously take a closer look at the KGM Rexton.

- BY DAVID WARD

The KGM name itself might seem unfamiliar but in effect it's the successor to the old Korean car maker Ssangyong and which is rising fast from the ashes of the old company with new models and an increasing network of dealers creating more awareness of the brand.

In essence the Rexton is a genuine workhorse for those looking for an uncompromising big car with exceptional towing capacity and vastly improved over the original 2003 model that arrived here and which had loads of old Mercedes-Benz hardware on board, including rather noisy and gruff sounding diesel engines!

Today's version is a different ball game, as they say, with with far more subtle interior comforts along with modern in-car technology and all the versatility anyone would want with a spacious seven-seater - and crucially it's cheaper too compared to most immediate rivals.

Keeping it simple is a key to this latest Rexton which has just one engine on offer a 2.2-litre 199bhp diesel engine and a choice of four trim levels along with an eight-speed automatic gearbox.

Perhaps surprisingly for such a big bodied car this Rexton has a decent enough turn of speed when required on the motorway and even when trundling around on town and urban roads it's competent enough and compared to those earlier diesel engines it's remarkably refined.