Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery when it comes to Chinese car makers

Published on 28 November, 2021

Overview

A billion people in one country. Hard to picture it. Staggering when you think about it. Now imagine a sizable proportion of those billion people wake up one morning and discover exciting new games like credit, consumerism and hire-purchase.

For China, the new century opened a floodgate of opportunity and western capitalists fell over themselves to get in on the action. Everyone from Ferrari to Spar wanted to set up stall in the once secretive state so they could flood China with their consumer goods.

The thing is though, there are a lot of Chinese consumers and not all of them can afford a Land Rover Evoque, a Louis Vuitton bag or are willing to wait three years for a Rolex. And when a market this big opens up this quickly, there are many enterprising locals willing to step into the breach.

Take the Chinese-designed and Chinese-built Changan X70A. From most angles it is a large and rather ungainly looking off-road car. Some have accused this company of ripping off the old Land Rover Discovery. Now this is perhaps pushing it a bit. Yes, it looks like a Disco in the beltline and perhaps the glass treatment. Those taillights are a little familiar too. But I would stop short of calling it a rip-off. ‘Homage’ might be more appropriate.

Now if someone from Land Rover wants to get upset, all they need to do is look at the Landwind X7. Land Rover looked at it long and hard before going to court in China to stop the €17,000 junior SUV from going on sale by pointing out that it was uncannily similar to their own Evoque. Range Rover kudos at used Kia prices . . . once you don’t look too closely. Eventually Land Rover managed to win the legal battle.

It isn’t just aristocratic British cars that are picked on, either. BMW also ended up in a Chinese court after they caught sight of the bewitching Shuanghuan SCEO. This car had a generic front end, but once you started to walk around the side it began to look a hell of a lot like a first-generation BMW X5. The Chinese court came down on the side of the local manufacturer, but BMW had something of a last laugh because the SCEO is now banned in Germany.

Maybe a high-end SUV isn’t your bag. How about a nice Hyundai Coupe that is neither nice nor a Hyundai? Take a bow, Geely Beauty Leopard. Not content with giving it a ridiculous name, Geely also managed to steal some Toyota design traits but mainly ripped off Hyundai. Geely didn’t stop there, with Rolls Royce also getting rather miffed about the Geely GE. Rolls even considered following BMW and Land Rover by dragging Geely to court but decided against it as the GE costs less than €50,000 and was unlikely to fool anybody with pockets deep enough for a real Roller. Strangely, Geely saw this copycat business as a bit of a dead end, so went one better and just bought the brands instead. They now own Volvo, Benelli motorcycles and Lotus.

While the Landwind is perhaps the best known of these eerily familiar cars, it isn’t the most blatant. That honour goes to the Chery QQ. The first baffling thing to know about the Chery is that it is alleged to be a copy of a Daewoo Matiz. It is not like the Matiz is a high-end product, so Chery copying it is a bit like a backstreet sweatshop producing fake Swatches. In 2003 General Motors, which owned Daewoo, took Chery to court with a few accusations a bit more serious than similar bumpers and familiar taillights. GM engineers took a Chery QQ and disassembled it, colour-coded the parts and then did the same thing with a Matiz. They jumbled the parts and put the two cars back together creating half drivable freakish hybrids. GM then also accused Chery of using a Matiz in crash tests instead of their own QQ. The case was compelling enough that Chery settled out of court.

China is a big place with plenty of domestic car makers, many of whom come up with fresh, interesting and original ideas to bring to the market. And then there is Huanghai, which seems to have cogged the second-generation Lexus RX twice. First with the hideous Huanghai NCV, which combined a Lexus RX with a Pontiac. More notable was the Landscape V3, which differs from its Lexus doppelganger by being launched three years after the Lexus went out of production and having a sub-€20,000 price-tag. This helped offset its alarming similarity with the Japanese SUV.

Toyota cars seem to be popular enough on the Chinese market, like everywhere else, so it is no surprise that the Lexus isn’t the only homage that Toyota’s legal team has had to look at. There was the Dadi Shuttle, which from the front looked like a rough description of a Toyota Land Cruiser, and the Ruili DoDa V8, which resembled a Japanese market Toyota Alphard luxury MPV – which is ugly enough on its own without requiring a Chinese clone. Despite the name, the DoDa V8 doesn’t have a V8 but a 2.4-litre Mitsubishi lump with around 165bhp.

Despite much laughter on the internet and lawyers gnashing their teeth, these cars keep on coming. The Ecosport wasn’t Ford’s finest hour but that didn’t stop the BYD Yuan paying tribute right down the rear-mounted spare wheel and oval logo. The BAIC BJ80 is an unsightly looking car and is identically unsightly to the current Mercedes-Benz G-Class, which is considerably more expensive.

Can’t afford a Porsche Macan? Well, Zoyte have you covered with their SR9, while the Zoyte E200 which manages to mimic the Smart ForTwo in being both small and pointless.

Recently the Chinese Car Maker Great Wall Motors confirmed at the Munich Motor Show that it will be selling its Ora brand in Europe. First up is the   Ora Cat sporting more than a passing reselmblence to VW’s iconic Beetle.

If you have ever fancied a Porsche SUV or a luxury Mercedes but don’t have the funds, the domestic Chinese market may well have the answer. Just try not to look too closely.