Musso's leader of the pack

Winning Drive’s Car of the Year crown is tough. Defending the title even tougher. Yet that’s exactly what the KGM SsangYong Musso has done.

The Musso has been named Best Dual-Cab Ute Under $50,000 for 2024 and now 2025 by the experts at Drive, one of Australia’s top motoring publications.

“Frankly, nothing in the sub-$50K price bracket gets even close,” Drive said. “It’s another impressive win, but one that is entirely deserved.

“It was the build quality, surprisingly long list of standard features, on-road manners and off-road capability and excellent seven-year unlimited kilometre warranty that won us over.”

Village Motors Rothwell Brand Manager Alex Seaward agrees saying the Musso “has got what it takes to compete with anything on the road”.

“It drives like a car but has the tough off-road capability for weekends away with a 3.5 tonne towing capacity for the boat or van.”

The KGM SsangYong Musso has four models ranging from a tradie ute up to “all the luxury you could want in a 4x4 ute”, Alex says.

Prices range from $40,000 to $47,500 driveaway with 2.2 litre four-cylinder, six-speed turbo diesel engine as well as standard and long-tray models available.

It has keyless entry and start, cruise control, HID (high intensity discharge) headlights, daytime running lights, tyre pressure monitoring system and 18-inch alloy wheels.

Drive says a key to the Musso’s back-to-back wins is South Korean manufacturer KGM didn’t release the model and then “forget about it”.

“The engineering team in South Korea continued to improve the Musso over the years, making it the best option in this category.”