SAIC's SsangYong to release a luxury car in early 2008

Shanghai. September 30 (Gasgoo.com) - Ssangyong Motor Co., South Korea's fourth-largest automaker, has announced plans to release a luxury car early next year as part of efforts to diversify its product range, a unnamed company official said Friday.

The automaker, majority owned by Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) of China, said that the new model, code-named W200, will have a 5.0-litre engine driving a seven-speed transmission and features greater interior space than Ssangyong's luxury sedan Chairman, the official said.

According to him, the new car has been developed within the SAIC network and is one of the 30 new models to be launched under SsangYong’s expansion strategy, which will enable Ssangyong moving away from its dependence on SUVs and diversifying into a new range of passenger cars.

The model will be manufactured at Ssangyong's Pyeongtaek plant in South Korea, where production capacity will be increased from 200,000 units per annum (upa) to 330,000 upa.

SsangYong's former Philip Murtaugh, who has recently become Chrysler's sales and marketing mamager, earlier assured its workers of the company's expansion plan to invest 300 billion won annually in research and development, creating more than 30 new models by 2010.

"We still spend 10 percent of our annual revenue in funding projects to create new Ssangyong automobiles," Murtaugh said.