Lifan showed the world what they’d been upto in their R&D dept at the Shanghai motor show, but since then news on the 520i has been rather limited. The Lifan 520 looked rather lonely in the Lifan one car line up, thus a hatchback, the Lifan 520i, has been added to the line up. This gives potential customers more of a choice, and to be honest, it looks pretty good! No official word on pricing yet, but we believe it will be between 50, and 70,000rmb with either a 1.3 or a 1.6 motor.
Previously on China Car Times we posted that it would be priced between 50, and 80,000rmb, obviously no official pricing has been announced yet.
A point to note: Lifan tells us that they didnt successfully buy the BMW Tritec factory in Brazil, due to the Brazilian government not allowing them to move the entire factory to China, but they did buy the BMW 1.6 engine, Lifan used this engine for a length of time before they developed their own series of engines, presumably based around the acquired BMW technology. Lifan has already created a Euro 5 spec engine, and may well go headlong into the European market.
Well done Lifan! The similarities between this company and Honda of long ago are downright frightening. Lifan is definitely going places because unlike many other Chinese companies, they have a very strong emphasis on quality. I’ll bet they’re going to get the first Chinese car on the market in Europe with a decent Euro NCAP safety rating.
I’d love to work for these guys - maybe help them get into the US market… If only Ashley had a contact with them… (*cough cough, ahem, wink, cough*)
http://www.chinacartimes.com/contact-china-car-times/
Let me know what you want, and I can pass it on
I’m sure we’ll be in touch.
Overall, a solid effort, but I noticed a few areas where the car needs some work. First, the rear is nothing to shout about, and the taillights probably ought to look a little more similar to the sedan’s. Second, what is going on behind the C pillar? It looks like they forgot to include that last little bit of window originally and cut it out with a Swiss Army knife after the fact. It’s most noticeable in the rear 3/4 shot. Take a look at for example.
I hope Lifan will achieve what they want to achieve, but Euro 5 spec engine is not enough, they will need to pass the Euro Ncap.
It did fine in the R-94 test, it should be alright in the Euro NCAP one.
Please can i buy the lifan car i m intrested in buying but not to sure of the quality i was told the engine is compatible with toyota how true is that