China cars

[Ciro Pabón]

I wonder if China is able to swamp the car market with cheap copycats. I, for one, welcome our new masters...

Take a look at this:











Hongda bike 725 pounds


Shuanghuan Noble: 7.000 euros


Spare parts market could be affected: Chery QQ doors fit on Chevy Spark (on the other hand, was the Spark designed by Daewoo or some corean carmaker?). Allegedly, the QQ costs 75% of Spark's price.

Yes, sure, they are cheap copies. You can concentrate on the word "copycats"... or in the word cheap. Besides, considering the lemons some western carmakers are used to shove down our throats at amazing prices, the chinese cars doesn't look that bad. I wonder how will this develop in the next 5 years... Maybe they will not stop at the "Li Vuittong" purses...

[mx_tifoso]

.......... or in the phrase "low quality". As most Chinese manufactured products are. You get what you pay for.

[Ciro Pabón]

You're right, they're cheap. Of course, when you buy a Merie you don't get a Mercedes... On the other hand, here you have some jewels from western car industry (probably everyone here has a favorite that is not in this short list):

Rover City Rover: bought from Tata at 2.500 pounds a piece and resold at 5.000. These executives at Rover love quality, sure.


Rolls Royce Camargue: dual level air conditioning and Pininfarina design. Mr. Pininfarina, God bless him, must have been drunk that day at the drawing board. Besides, why on earth you wish to have your feet cool and your head warm, and interchange 80.000 solid silver pounds from 1986 for this horror, beats me


AMC Pacer. I quote: "AMC's only conceivable excuse for this stylistic horror would be if their design crew was tripping on massive quantities of acid...and even then...it wouldn't be a good excuse."


Edsel 1956: books have been written over the ugliness of this car. His price, of course, was different from the chinese modern versions: you payed far more of what you got. I quote again: "Gas-guzzling, three-ton behemoth with a toilet seat grill and inexplicably tacky push-button transmission shifting. The standard by which all other automotive brand failures have been judged (and ridiculed) for 50 years."


Chevrolet Chevette. I have no words. Others are more articulate: "When the car went into any type of water puddle it would suck water into the engine. They fell apart after 40,000 miles. Piece of junk." "Absolute garbage BEFORE it was built." "It was junk like this that opened the door for Toyota and Honda. Sad but true."


Fiat Multipla. Normally, italians get good designs. This time I wonder what happened.


Let's stop at the Ford Pinto:


No, better yet, let's stop at Mercedes M, the "Alabama Mercedes". I saw it on TopGear. Clarkson put a finger in the gap between the taillights and the bumper and placed the car last in the list of cars in the show...

Mercedes M Formula One medical car is made in America... as it should be.


If we, the public, are able to swallow this lemons, maybe we could swallow chinese ones at lesser prices. Actually, I would love to have a Hongda bike... it would suit my Rebok tennis and my Rolox watch...

[modbaraban]

Don't forget to look for the Chinese car rash tests in the u-tube
I remember the thing that looked like an illegitimate child of of BMW-5 and Lancia Thesis called Brilliance (lol) was literally fold in two after a frontal impact at 60km/h And for THAT they want as much as for a new Lancer!

[Carlos]

Ciro - I have driven 2 cars that were basically cheap copies of western engineering. A 1966 1100cc Toyota Corolla and a 1989 Suzuki Swift. Both were early offerings of each company and in many ways can be compared to the microcars from China. Both were cheap, both ran forever. The Corolla cost $1800 and lasted 16 years. I drove the Swift for 13 years, cost just $7900. Both were very good values. I enjoyed them both with a minimum of repairs. The Corolla's weak point - I did several valve jobs. The Swift needed several sets of front brake discs ... still I think the maintenance costs were low and the savings in fuel and purchase price very high. Yes the fit on panels was not great ... but as long as the doors closed I was happy
I welcome the import of cars from China. We will probably have to wait until they have enough capacity to satisfy their local market and the excess capacity to export. The American car companies are already importing parts for their own models assembled here in North America. Soon they will import complete cars ... and just rebadge them. Happened with the Korean and Japanese vehicles. Then the Chinese will set up their own dealership network.

Did you get my link on the La Corniche circuit in North Africa?
http://jbbassibey.free.fr/eng-%20circui ... rniche.htm

[Belatti]

The worst part of all this is (for this region) is that here in Argentina and in Uruguay there are already 2 "Chery" factories who plan to make those turds.

It will be a 5000 euros unsafety piece of junk, that thousands of "car ignorant" people will buy instead of getting a used (maybe 2001-2004) brandname price-equivalent car. FATHER FORGIVE THEM, THEY DONT KNOW WHAT THEY´VE DONE!!!

The good part is there will be economic growth in the region.

PS: doesnt GeelyeMarie ride height and rear make you laught?

Good point Carlos, I didn´t think in the way you did (maybe because I never saw Japanese growing in the 70´s-80´s in my own country), every day you learn something new, from a different point of view, maybe in 5 years or more we see those cars evolve into nowadyas Civics or Imprezas !
Thanks!

[modbaraban]

....can be compared to the microcars from China.

Not even close [-X

I still see ancient models Nissan (Datsun), Mitsubishi, Toy ota and Honda on the streets of my city. Now my family has a Daewoo Nubira `98 which was a good value for money back then. It survived 2-3 years of hardly-ever-driving (standing in a garage most of the time) and started to collapse!!! Most of the suspension is replaced every 20'000-30'000 km. Even the Opel 1.6 engine needed repairs and the car didn't even reach 80'000 yet!
The windows go dim every time it rains, the electric windows hardly work, the exhaust system was repaired after it almost fell off burnt through!!!
Exactly the same car is used by my dad at work (only different color) and it's the same wreck!
And if we'd sell ours 9 y.o. Nubira, we wouldn't buy a 20-y.o. Golf!
If that is early Korean quality, then what's early Chinese?

PS: my grandad still drives a FIAT copy (licenced tho) by Lada which is about 4.5 decades old

[checkered]

About the AMCs, dare

I reveal that I'm somewhat of a fan. Beautiful and sensible cars? The most likely answer is no, of course. It's just the sense that these guys were doing there thing and I respect that. Even if they seemed to inhabit a Universe of their own sometimes. I appreciate diversity (as opposed to making copies). And most AMC models, however brutish or incomprehensible those might seem to the casual observer, tend to lift my sprits inexplicably. No generic design has ever done that to me, and few sportscar designs do that either.

[modbaraban]

Not bad at all to me. Except the numbers 5 and 6. And the 7th (last one) is copied from Porsche 928 and some american car.

[flynfrog]

my father has a javelin amx he bought new it only has 20000 miles on it

[modbaraban]

Take a look at this:

http://www.autoreview.ru/Video/2007/Aut ... ELY_OTAKA/

[West]

China will turn a blind eye to this crap until people die by the masses. I hope this sh*t never hits the States.

Korean cars are much better... they used to be the laughing stock of autos in the States in the 90's; now they are good competition to Toyota.

[monkeyboy1976]

What people are saying about Chinese cars now, was also said of Korean and Japan cars in the past. See now that Toyota is number one with GM.
Only a matter of time until the Chinese are level with them. Question is: can the Detriot 3 survive? The US car giants need to adapt or die. But the Chinese will always be on the tail.

[Ray]

My dad works in a machine shop and he hates chinese parts. He says the quality is horrible. Especially on chromed intake manifolds they make. One he pulled out of the box had the bolt holes just a tiny amount off center, and the chrome plate was flaking off so bad there was a pile of it in the box. Brand new they don't last last enough to even be shipped somewhere. I can't imagine how sh*tty the cars are going to be. I love how they blatantly rip off other cars too. Hilarious. Who do they think they are fooling?

[freedom_honda]

i gotta say this is disgraceful even though i am a chinese (not really cuz i am actually born in Hong Kong and never been to China)..
i am sick of all these low quality copied stuff made by the Chinese..