China Car Times

$10,000USD used to be quite an amount of cash for a car, you could get a decent second hand car for $10k, but with the massive depreciation of the USD over the past few months, the amount of car you could get for your money has also gone down quite a bit. China Car Times had a look for some cars that you might be able to buy (not including sales tax), brand new, for around 10,000USD, and here are the results:

BYD F1

The F1 (left) may have been ridiculed by the press for being a Toyota clone, but that doesnt stop it from being an excellent little car. For the price, starting at a mere 36,000RMB ($5,260USD) and rising to 46,900rmb ($6,700USD) the car is an utter steal if you only want to go from A to B and need a car as a transportation tool and not a status symbol, although the F1 is pretty cool. The F1 we saw at an auto show was suprisingly well built, usually show cars for auto shows are rushed together, but this BYD F1 felt like it had been put together by a pro, as it should have been.

Brilliance FRV

The FRV seems to be seen as a hatchback answer to the BS4, truth be told, it appears to be far too short to be a hatchback, it should be seen as an entirely new model in its own right. The FRV took us a bit by surprise when it first launched, the front end looked great, the rear end looked liked it was rushed together, but once you’ve seen the FRV in various different colors then you can really see that the FRV is actually a great looking car. Quality and performance, we couldnt tell you about straight away, but a quick surf of the Chinese FRV owners club reveals many a satisfied buyer. The cheapest 1.3l model starts at a frugal 55,800rmb ($8,000USD) to 63,800rmb ($9206 USD).

If Brilliance ever bring out the long awaited rumoured 170bhp FRV 1.8T sports model (possibly GT model), China Car Times will be down to the Brilliance dealership in a flash.

Chery A3

So far we’ve shown you a mini, a compact hatch, so what we need now is a compact sedan. This comes in the form of the beautiful Chery A3. The A3 measures 4.3m long, which is quite a big car considering the price. The 1.6 basic A3 will cost 81,800rmb, the 1.6 standard will cost 85,800rmb, and the higher speced 1.6l Elite model will be 89,800rmb, so all slightly above the 10k USD marker, but what more could you ask for in a brand new car? The A3 is a China Car Times favorite, so is the Hafei Saibao line up, but they dont appear to be selling en masse at all, so we had to pick the A3 out. You can read everything we’ve said about the Chery A3 here.

If there is one thing we’ve missed out, its an SUV. The only SUV we can think of that actually looks good and may have limited off road potential is the latest updated version of the Zotye 5008.

The original Zotye 2008 didnt come with any airbags, it was pure motoring, it did have ABS though. But what can you expect for a mere 55,900rmb? ($8,700USD) There are a few other SUV’s in the sub 10,000USD section, including the Great Wall Safe at just 70,780rmb ($10,344rmb) for the base 2.2l 2wd model, remember the Great Wall Safe is pretty much an older Toyota Hilux with a roof instead of a pick up bed, then theres the infamous Landwind X6, which is just over the $10,000USD marker. A 1.6 manual Chery Tiggo is also a little over budget, but still reasonable enough to make the list. A competitor to the Zotye 5008 in the super cheap SUV catergories comes from the Zhejiang UFO SUV, basically a clone of the first generation 3 door Toyota RAV4, the UFO starts at 69,000rmb ($10,084USD) for the cheapest 1.6 manual model.

Although the above list is just a few of our favorite picks, we can see each segment, (super mini, compact hatch, compact sedan, and compact SUV markets) hotting up all over the world as the price of oil continues to go up, and families continue to downsize to meet financial needs.

Next time, we’ll make a list of sub 10,000USD list of pick up trucks and other commercial vehicles to highlight some of the best of China.