Samsung set to unveil new flagship sedan

South Korea's Samsung -- which most of us associate with household goods rather than cars -- has released a teaser image of its all-new SM7 flagship sedan, which makes its debut this Thursday (March 31) at the Seoul motor show.

The Samsung car brand (a subsidiary of Renault) is not as yet represented in Australia, even though it recently filmed a commercial for its new SM5 in Sydney.

The company currently has annual production volumes of roughly 200,000 units -- the vast majority of which are sold in China, Korea, Russia, Mexico and South America.

The new SM7 is set to take over the baton from an ageing predecessor that was based on the Nissan J31 platform, sourced from the previous-gen Maxima. Visually, too, the SM7 was largely as per the Nissan donor car.

Based on what we can glean from the accompanying sketch, the newcomer looks far sleeker than the outgoing model with Kia-esque high-shouldered proportions and clean, uncluttered design language.

The face is distinguished by swept-back headlights and an Audi-mimicking single-frame grille. Although somewhat derivative, the SM7 appears a good looker… at least in the rendering.

In keeping with Samsung's push to base its new models on Renault -- rather than Nissan -- architecture, the SM7 is believed to be underpinned by a stretched version of the smaller SM5's platform, which also forms the basis for the Renault Latitude.

As previously reported by us, there are as yet no plans to introduce Samsung cars to Australia, but that's not to say this won't ever change in due course.

There's also the possibility the SM7 will be offered in some markets wearing Renault badges -- as is the case with the Safrane, which is a rebadged SM5 sold in the Middle East as a Renault.

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