According to media reports today, Chrysler and Great Wall are planning to work together to produce an A-segment car which will be produced by Great Wall, but sold worldwide with the Chrysler badging.
Chrysler reportedly sent engineers to Great Wall in August of this year to work with Great Wall to create a super mini which would be worthy of taking on the Chrysler badging and would be upto world standards design, and safety wise. Work on the A-segment car is expected to be finished by the end of the year, which may indicate that it could be a reworked version of a car that Great Wall already has, or is close to completing.
The Chery-Chrysler joint venture does not appear to have gotten anywhere very quick, with only a rebadged Chery A1, aka the Dodge Breeze being spotted so far, there were rumours that the Chery A3 would join the Dodge line up for developing countries in South America, but that has yet to be seen.
Great Walls future line up of small cars can be seen here, any guesses to which model could be a future Chrysler? The Perry can be ruled out due to IPR issues with Fiat, the MPV is a little too folksey, so perhaps the Cool Bear?
Is that a “Scion”??
Now THAT one is a blatant copy. I hope Chrysler don’t…oh they’re so broke that even this gamble wouldn’t save them. Maybe Greatwall can buy the whole company. Someone will soon.
Given that Renault is making a bid on Chrysler brand and Renault has a line of A & B segment cars that they would like to sell under Chrysler brand, I don’t see this badge-engineering of Great Wall’s Yaris rip-off going anywhere, even if this is restyled to look different from Yaris.
Chinese should stop dreaming about entering the US market through Chrysler distribution, Chrysler is acting like a gold-digger that’s sleeping with anybody and everybody(Chery, Great Wall, Nissan, Renault, Hyundai, Mitsubishi), until they find a rich suiter to sell itself.
Spell that Sigh!-on….Copy of the original XB. Come to think of it I like the original more than the newbee, and it got better gas mileage.
I love the Scion range - I wish it would come to China!
I vote that they put a Hemi in the Hover (Hovi,Hevi) and shake up the market with a tire scorching V8 CUV that will be a bundle of fun in the wet and leave rubber all over the city in the dry (with some nice strips on the road)……….BUT, we are more likely to see a pussy little thing with a 400cc engine in it to please the greens and pay less tax. Yay….