NewsBiscuit Car Review: Kemi Torileda

The American influence is obvious, and a reliance on out of date thinking and an appeal to a narrowing market has a led to this mess. Multiple poor iterations have resulted in a massive loss of power with still extremely high running costs.

The current Torileda has a Kemi made block which only appeals to those who like to put their foot down.

It just doesn’t suit the current environment and is rejected by most European countries. It is ridiculous to think that cutting yourself off from an entire continental market and focusing on a small fan base would be good for long term profitability. To go with a platform that is hugely oil consuming and to dismiss renewable energy powered alternatives, could gift a whole market to China.

For a brand with a long history of success, things have fallen flat because of how wasteful they has been and just catering to the high-end market. This principle was big a few decades ago and they have now seemed to mainly rely on name recognition since then rather than any outstanding performance or innovation. The last few years saw multiple Torileda versions, each one with serious failings calling on multiple embarrassing recalls. The short-lived TR-SS edition was an absolute disaster. The latest version is a lot quieter and stable but still fairly unappealing.

When tested, the automatic response is predictable but doesn’t engage very well. This particular version has lost its traditional support and upcoming UK alternatives have more traction, which could be troubling.

Overall is has juddering, poor performance along with a shoddy reliability record.

Pros

Good for the oil industry

Could be beneficial if you are rich

Cons

Not very responsive and direction feels wobbly

Hated brand with poor support

An improvement, but still way out of touch ✭✩✩✩✩