RIP Camry: Roewe 550 to begin prowling streets soon
There has been a flurry of Roewe spy shots over the past few months, ever since December last year we’ve been busy posting spyshots of alleged Roewe models out testing in either the extreme colds of North Eastern China, or the hot summers of Australia (lucky things!)
Roewe unveiled the W2 at the Shanghai Auto Show this year, and caused a great fuss – A Chinese company that was clearly utilizing its British based design team assets to the fullest, you can see the W2 development photos here
China Car Times has a special treat for readers, the first pictures known of the Roewe 550 unclothed, with no disguises or camoflauge known to exist…. click continue to see more.
As usual, click for bigger pictures.
The Roewe 550 will be a 1.8 turbo assisted model, the same as what came out of the Roewe 750 1.8T and the budget 1.8T MG7. Measurements are in at (LxWxH) 4624 x 1827 x 1480mm, the wheelbase measures 2705mm.
Overall, the Roewe 550 is slightly shorter than the Roewe 750, which makes us think that perhaps this car is new metal on the old short wheelbase Rover 75, where as the Roewe 750 was based on the long wheel base Rover 75. However, the Chinese motoring press are saying that originally people thought it was based on the Rover 45 platform, hence they named it the Roewe 450, but now the Chinese motoring press are saying it is actually an entirely new platform that SAIC have created – so what is it, a new platform, or a rehashed Rover? Either way, this car is beautiful.
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wow !
like Citroen C-5 !
nice
BRITISH DESIGN??!?!?! What rubbish, its Chinese design all over rover in the UK with their UK based design team could never design a car like this!!! Give credit where credit is due. If Rover UK had a design team like this they would not have gone under.
Come off it! Longbridge and Oxford both had great innovative designers for very many years! It was and is British design that shows through in many other foreign automobiles right thru to even the 4 door Mercedes Coupe style salooons now!
And that is quite apart from the revolutionary ADO 15 and ADO 16 etc from BMC in the late Fifties! Going on from this there are the various Jaguar successes such as the Mk IIs Saloons, E Types, the Astin Martin DB Variations, the AC Cobras!
Rover and before them BMC and then BLMC went under because of criminally bad management over many years. They wasted the great efforts of the grounders of the British Motor Indutry William Morris and Herbert Austin.
But not only Britain had its bad or inept COEs and managers. Look at Daimler-Benz AG that under the management of Herr Schrempp actually had its shareholder value halfed!! Similar things happened at Volkswagen AG where some of its COEs were worse than terrible!
In closing for those interested in great automobiles from Britain I recommend reading:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/grouptests/247741/greatest_jaguars.h
Happy Motoring with Safety Fast!
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