Claim: South Korean car manufacturer Kia has launched a vehicle named “Khan” to honour Imran Khan.
Fact: The claim is false. The vehicle in question is not manufactured by Kia but by KG Mobility, also a South Korean company, which has confirmed that the SUV’s name is a reference to the Mongol Empire, not Imran Khan.
On 13 August 2024, Soch Fact Check received a video on WhatsApp of a bearded man wearing a topi — or skullcap — showing around a sport utility vehicle (SUV) in what appears to be a parking lot. It has the word “KHAN” written on its tailgate in the back and its grille in the front.
The clip is accompanied by the following caption:
“پٹواریوں اب کیا کرو گے 😢😭😥
کوریا کے KIA والوں نے KHAN کے نام سے برانڈ کار لانچ کردی ہے 😇
[Patwariyon! What are you going to do now? 😢😭😥
Korean company Kia has launched a brand car called KHAN 😇]”
“Patwariyon” is the plural of “Patwari,” a term often used in a derogatory manner for supporters of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the political party currently in power. It is commonly employed by fans of Imran Khan, the former prime minister and founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) who is currently in jail.
The portmanteau term “Youthiya”, on the other hand, is used for PTI supporters, often in a derogatory manner.
The video has a lot of text superimposed on it; it reads as follows:
“(kHAN)
🔥💥🚨 EDITING 🚨💥🔥
خان ایک برانڈ ہے یار کوریا والوں نے خان کے نام کی گاڈی مارکیٹ میں لاؤنچ کر دی ہے
👌👏👏👏👏👏👍👌
❤️ SYED 🌹 AFZAL ❤️”
The Urdu portion of the text translates to: “Khan is a brand. Koreans have launched a car named after Khan in the market”.
We also noticed the TikTok username @nasir.6667 and found that the account had posted the video (archive) at 3:39 AM on 9 August 2024, according to Bellingcat’s TikTok Date Extractor. The clip, the caption of which only includes the hashtags “#imrankhanzindabad❤️🇵🇰🇵🇰 #پنڈاں_آلے_جٹ💫✌🏻🇵🇰🇸🇦🇸🇦🇸🇦 #foryou”, has been viewed over 751,000 times so far and is accompanied by the song, “Hamin Peyar He Imran Se” by Taimoor Alam Khelvi.
The Imran Khan fiasco
Khan was first arrested (archive) on 9 May 2023 on the orders of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) over charges of corruption in the Al-Qadir Trust case (archive). His detention triggered violent, country-wide protests and he was released (archive) a few days later after the Supreme Court of Pakistan intervened.
The former PM was arrested (archive) and imprisoned for a second time on 5 August 2023, after a court ruled his “dishonesty [was] established beyond doubt” in the Toshakhana case. He has been incarcerated since then.
In January 2024, just a month ahead of the general elections in Pakistan, he was sentenced for a total of 31 years over charges of corruption, leaking state secrets, and an un-Islamic marriage, according to these reports (archived here and here).
Khan was seen for the first time (archive) since his incarceration in an apparently leaked photo from the 16 May 2024 proceedings, when he was allowed to appear in the Supreme Court via a video link.
A day prior to the court proceedings, the PTI leader was granted (archive) bail in a corruption case. Earlier, the sentences handed down in two of the four cases he was convicted in were also suspended; one of them (archive) was the Toshakhana case. However, he would not be released from jail, his lawyer had said (archive).
In July, it was reported that Khan was acquitted in two other cases (archived here and here) by Pakistani courts.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check first observed “Rexton Sports” written on a tinted window above the truck’s bed.
When we ran different keyframes from the viral video through Google Lens, we found results — including news articles and advertisements — mentioning a vehicle named “SsangYong Musso,” “KGM Musso” or “SsangYong Rexton.”
KGM, which stands for KG Mobility Corporation, is a South Korean automobile manufacturer that was formerly known as SsangYong Motor Company.
A 3 May 2023 article published by Australian media outlet The Rural, sourced from this website, included “leaked” pictures of a new version of the vehicle known as SsangYong Musso. It stated, “This new name has been tacked onto the existing Rexton Sports (Musso) and Rexton Sports Khan (Musso XLV) nameplates there.”
A March 2021 post on NewCarscoops, a community of vehicle owners and enthusiasts, is about the SUV’s “facelift,” or changes in its design. One user wrote, “It’s a long version of Rexton Sports. It’s a picture of Khan’s facelift. […] Anyway, the grill in front of me is very different from the new Rexton. There’s also a Khan emblem on the top of the grill.”
Facelifts, as mentioned above, can be found on PEAK 4×4, a website selling “genuine and aftermarket SsangYong parts” that also included similar images of the same vehicle. It offers an option of including the “Khan” lettering on the front grille.
An advertisement to sell “SsangYong The New Rexton Sports KHAN 2.2 4WD Noblesse Vehicle” on Icnkr, a Chinese-language website, mentioned the car’s year as “October 2021”. This, too, included images that match the SUV in the video in question.
A February 2021 post on Reddit also featured the same vehicle.
The information above indicates that the SUV was available in 2021 and not launched in 2024. This was further corroborated by a 12 April 2021 press release available on KG Mobility’s website, with the title “SsangYong launches New Rexton Sports & Khan.”
We also found multiple images of the same car on the stock photo agencies DreamsTime and Shutterstock here and here, respectively.
When we searched for review videos of the vehicle on YouTube using the term “SsangYong Rexton Sports KHAN,” we found results from different years, including 2023, 2021, and 2019. We then looked for ads for “2019 Rexton Khan” and found some here.
This confirmed that the vehicle existed as far back as in 2019. News reports about the same car published by The Korea Times and Yonhap News Agency on 3 January 2019, The Dong-A Ilbo on 23 January 2019, Korea JoongAng Daily on 20 January 2022, and The Korea Herald on 23 January 2022 also corroborated the fact.
In a news update on its website, KG Mobility stated that the “Rexton Sports Khan” is exported with the name “Musso Grand”. The company’s 2018 Annual Business Result mentioned its January 2019 plan to launch Rexton Sports “KHAN”, noting that there were “expectations of vehicle sales increase” with the new SUV.
It is important to note that the SUV shown in the viral video has a trunk cover, also known as a camper shell or truck topper, as opposed to most of the pictures of the vehicle we found online.
Soch Fact Check reached out to KG Mobility through email addresses provided on its website for a comment but did not get a response. We then requested journalists from The Korea Herald, which published a news story about the SUV in 2022, to obtain answers to our questions from the automobile manufacturer’s public relations (PR) team.
According to KG Mobility’s PR team, which sent the answers to The Korea Herald journalists, the Rexton Sports Khan was released on 3 January 2019 and has “excellent loading capacity and improved usability based on a greatly expanded deck compared to the existing Rexton Sports”.
The company subsequently launched two new models of the car — New Rexton Sports Khan in January 2022 and Rexton Sports Khan Culmen in July 2023, it added. A picture of the latter can be found here.
“The name ‘Khan’ is a reference to the Mongol Empire, the most extensive empire in history, and represents a new, limitless leisure lifestyle with an extended deck and increased loading capacity. It has no direct relation to Imran Khan or Pakistan,” KG Mobility said.
We were also able to trace KG Mobility’s ad to launch Rexton Sports KHAN on YouTube through a brochure for the same SUV. The clip was uploaded on 3 January 2019.
Its caption states: “당신의 가슴을 한 칸 더 뛰게 할 렉스턴 스포츠 칸 탄생 [The birth of the Rexton Sports KHAN that will make your heart beat faster.”
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the claim is false as the vehicle in question is not named after Imran Khan but refers to the Mongol Empire. It is also false that the car is manufactured by Kia, as it is produced by KG Mobility.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim shared here on TikTok, here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook, and here and here on X (formerly Twitter).
Conclusion: The claim is false. South Korean automobile manufacturer KG Mobility has confirmed that the vehicle’s name is a reference to the Mongol Empire, not Imran Khan.
Background image in cover photo: ImranKhanOfficial
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