Old hand changes Korean camps

Deon Cooper (left) and father Rick sold out of Hyundai to invest $10 million in SsangYong, a Korean brand with some bad publicity. Photo / Supplied

You could be forgiven for thinking that Rick Cooper - larger-than-life Mayor of Taupo and car dealer/enthusiast for more than 40 years - knows something the rest of the motor industry doesn't.

Cooper, with son Deon, has sold one of the country's most successful Hyundai dealerships and invested $10 million to establish a distributorship for another South Korean brand with a recent history that could only be described as troubled.

And he's doing it all in Taupo.

The Coopers' new company, Great Lake Motor Distributors, is now the official distributor for SsangYong.

SsangYong? That's the South Korean maker of off-road and crossover vehicles, known in the 1990s for licensing Mercedes-Benz powertrains and better known this century for being in a lot of financial and legal trouble.

SsangYong was taken over by Daewoo Motors in 2000, sold to Chinese maker SAIC in 2004, and finally collapsed amid the global financial crisis in 2008.

Allegations of SsangYong leaking confidential South Korean hybrid-vehicle technology to its Chinese owners have since emerged.

Senior technical staff were indicted by the South Korean Government early in 2010.

SsangYong went up for auction in 2009 and was sold to Indian maker Mahindra. The deal was finalised in February this year and among the new worldwide distributors was Great Lake.

It's a big change for Cooper - the first time he's been out of car retail since he got his dealer licence 40 years ago.

Cooper claims the opportunity to sell the Taupo Wings and Wheels dealership and another one to become a fully fledged factory distributor were separate and conveniently coincidental, but it's also clear he has outgrown his role as a retail operator for Hyundai

Cooper is adamant he's in the right place, with the SsangYong head office located right next to the new Taupo motorway bypass.

It's a central North Island location and potential transport hub, with links to the ports at Tauranga and Napier. What about Auckland?

"The port's at the bottom of the central city," says Cooper.

"It can take you an hour just to get out of the place.

"This is the ideal place for a distribution centre. It's just that companies in Auckland haven't woken up to it yet."

That's as much the mayor talking as the new-car distributor.

Cooper is pushing for a motorway service centre on the bypass, to further boost local business, and his council has employed consultants to try to convince more Auckland businesses to relocate.

But the car industry is all about product, and GLMD is pinning its SsangYong relaunch hopes on the new Korando, a compact crossover with striking styling, a new-generation 2-litre turbodiesel engine and prices that range from $34,990 for a front-drive manual to $47,990 for the top SPR automatic.

It competes with the likes of the Hyundai ix35 and Nissan Qashqai.

Some aspects of Korando verge on the cheap and cheerful - the quality of the cabin plastics, for example - but it's a lot of car for the money.

The powertrain is bang up-to-date, with impressive power (129kW/360Nm) and Euro V emissions status. The engine is built in South Korea but the key technology is bought in.

The days of everything SsangYong being trumpeted as "licensed from Mercedes-Benz" are long gone, but Deon Cooper goes as far as saying:

"Our understanding is that the technology is European, but that's as much as we've been told".

While the initial shipments have been six-speed manual only, by July or August GLMD expects to have decent numbers of both manual and six-speed automatic coming through.

There are Auckland dealerships in North Shore City and Penrose.

Part of the distribution deal was taking existing product such as Kyron, Rexton and the hideous Stavic people-mover, but the next big thing will be a replacement for the Actyon ute, due here at the start of next year.

"The factory is very happy with us because we don't have five other brands to distribute," says Cooper. "We've got one wife, and that's SsangYong."

You could never accuse either of the Coopers of lacking enthusiasm. But Cooper snr also gives the impression of seeing a bigger picture with the experienced eye of a car dealer from way back.

"Know what I find really exciting about this whole thing? Our lease business," he says.

"We can control the vehicles, keep in touch with our customers and when they're done with their 60,000km, three years or whatever, the vehicles will come back to us.

"We can check them over and take the cars back out to our dealers.

"You can't get used imports any more, so what's the guy who wants a used wagon to tow his horse float or boat with going to buy?

"A Rexton. If we can get 20-odd vehicles per month going out, that leasing business is going to be great because that's the number we'll have coming back in three years. And that will carry on."