We know we know, its barely gone 2008 and we’ve already decided that the coolest car of 08 is the Great Well Peri we have to wait until what we can see at the Beijing show in the next few months before we decide properly, but the Peri is just magic, and costing only 50,380rmb, we’re sure it will have plenty of takers.
The Peri was the reason for a legal spat between Great Wall Motors and Fiat over Fiats claim that Peri is a clone of a Fiat model.
Autohome, a Chinese motoring site recently reviewed the Peri and seemed to like it.The Peri seems jam packed full of storage space, and seems very well thought out for a car at its price! The 1.3 engine is a Mitsubishi sourced job self developed engine from Great Wall, paired to a 5 speed manual gearbox. Check out the pictures below to enjoy the Great Wall Peri.
The Peri measures 3.5m long, 1.5m wide, and 1.5m tall, thats not the best bit of all, check out the photos below.
And there you have it, probably the best car of 08 in 50 pictures or less. Thanks to autohome.cn for taking and publishing the pictures.
is the engine not supplied by Mitsubishi?
no, its a self made one from GWM, my mistake.
All that writing nicely masks, and distracts us from, the fit and finish flaws of this new model.
And the fact that not only does the exterior look so much like a Fiat Panda but the interior is almost 100% the same. I can’t believe they are allowed to get away with this blatant copying!!
But the price, the price!!!!
so what? It’s cheap but it’s fake. Fake watches and handbags are one thing but this is ridiculous.
yeah, what’s with the price??
it might be cheap, but this doesn’t cover the fact that it’s a copy…
Colin, great comparison with the watches and bags….
the only thing is that posers buy Gucci and Rolex fakes because they try to fool other people to think they actually own a real product…
It’s different in the auto industry, IMO. In this case, people buy the car for it being cheap, not because it’s a “Fiat replica” (why would anyone make a replica of a Fiat, anyway…).
So, IMO if GWM made a car that looked good, but weren’t a copy of any other car, it would sell good anyway.
they’ve copied this car just to save money on a new product developement… so long for the auto industry competition… so long for innovations at each new vehicle…
imagine if this happened in Europe or in America or any other place besides China… if brands were allowed to freely copy other brands… no innovations would come up at each new generation… corsas, fiestas and polos would all be the same… as camrys, accords, fusions and malibus… auto industry would never have developed…
Chinese government is just STUPID for letting this happen…
Dragin, Hopefully ill be able to get my grubby hands on one by early Feb, Ill let you know how it is.
I saw the 50k RMB Little Nobel, and the interior fitting was less than good. I pulled the dash out.
Has there been some form of result in the legal action from Fiat?
Fiats legal goal was to stop production of the Peri
The Chinese gave GWM the license to produce this car.
I guess Fiat was not successful.
GWM is looking to export this to Italy as well, the next few months should be…. interesting?
Great wall give chinese a bad name!!! The Peri is a copy of Fiat Panda. I’m sure Fiat will be sucessful in preventing them selling Peri in Europe, where they have Copyright laws. I would never buy a chinese car..ever!
you can’t deny this is a copy, the interior is vitually the same http://www.netcarshow.com/fiat/2006-panda_cross/800×600/wallpaper_1d.htm
see for yourself, spare me your propaganda..
I’m disappointed in Great Wall…afterall they had done such a good job of putting a new face on the Axiom.
I thought they had more class… as China’s leading 4X4 maker.
how much is 50,380 rmb in euros?
Roughly 4,691 Euros or 6,937 dollars
Obviously a copy of a Fiat. Also, made cheep (as in not quite as good).
However, it is a “proven-product” and does what Chinese cars need to do, it runs well and efficiently.
Mostly this car copy will give China the necessary auto making experience to move forward in car production. The money issues will be handled, obviously Fiat deserves some money, and truly they should be hired as consultants on Great Wall’s next car models.
I expect to see far better automotive products “made in China” very soon, especially battery-electric cars.