Greatwall: “Copy? What Copy?” – Fiat clone claims dismissed in China
Fiat claimed that the Great Wall Perry was a total clone of the Fiat Panda, but Great Wall said otherwise. An Italian court ruled in Fiats favor, and probably less suprising, a Chinese court ruled in favor of Great Wall.
From Reuters:
MILAN, Jan 5 (Reuters) – Great Wall Motor Co Ltd (2333.HK) said a Chinese court has dismissed in a final ruling a claim by Italy’s Fiat (FIA.MI) alleging infringement of a Fiat patent by the Chinese car maker.
The Hebei Province People’s High Court dismissed on Dec. 29 a Fiat appeal alleging that Great Wall’s GWPeri compact car was an infringement of its patent, upholding a July ruling by the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People’s Court, Great Wall said in a statement on Monday.
“The judgment is final and conclusive and no further appeal may be lodged on the subject dispute in the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” it said.
Fiat declined to comment.
In July an Italian court banned Great Wall from selling the GWPeri compact car in the European Union, saying the car too closely resembled Fiat’s Panda.
In Monday’s statement Great Wall said a further announcement would be made on developments in the dispute proceedings in Italy. (Reporting by Danilo Masoni; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
Seeing as the courts cannot decide if it was a copy, or not, we leave it upto CCT readers. Here is your evidence, and video evidence from the Moscow auto show
Related: Scion Xb seen in Great Wall Factory.
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It is Chinese government’s responsibility to ban exports of pirated vehicles like QQ, Bubble, and Peri. The reason is that these vehicles greatly harm China’s reputation in the eyes of foreigners; to foreigners, negative emotions are attached to the brand “China” every time a controversy like this erupts, be it the LandWind crash test result or pirate cars landing on European port. When single Chinese car damages brand of “China”, all Chinese automakers are hurt consequently. You may have noticed in autoblog how people freely ridicule all Chinese cars and even make racist comments, even on likes of Roewes. This represent the general sentiment of western drivers toward Chinese cars, and SAIC might find it impossible to sell Roewes to western consumers for being a Chinese car reguardless of performance and quality.
Seems that those passing the verdict are just simple bicycle riders, going tit for tat with the Italian court that decided against the Gw Peri and in favor of Fiat. They are not aware of how other Chinese makers are also hurt by their decision.
What is frustrating is that a company like Great Wall (which builds decent trucks as well as the Hover) compounds and makes a WORSE mistake than Chery did 5 years ago with the QQ. We all ridiculed Chery then – and since then look at Chery. New models, fresh designs….a real desire to do things the right way. So, here comes Great Wall, and does it all over again with not one model – but THREE (the Peri, Florid and Coolbear). It’s interesting that the Peri has NOT been a big success in China so far…..maybe the chinese consumer is ALSO getting tired of seeing chinese car models that are CLEARLY copies of a foreign car? It appears as though Great Wall and their insistence that the Peri, Florid and Coolbear are “original” designs is going to end up biting them in the ass financially………let’s hope they learn from this.
Well, that’s because Peri replicated a Fiat, not exactly a strong brand in China.
I hope Chinese government officials and auto industry leaders realize that these clone cars and less-than-acceptable safety cars that Chinese automakers ship out to overseas will come back to haunt all Chinese makers for decades to come.
Hell look at Hyundai; its Genesis was just judged to be superior to Lexus ES350 and Acura TL by Consumer Reports(The most influential consumer auto purchase guide in the US) while also beating out Lexus GS350 in another mag’s comparison test, yet Hyundai struggles to sell “superiority certified” Genesis in the US because of single problem; Hyundai brand itself. Sins of Hyundai’s past dumping junk cars in US market a quarter century ago continues to haunt Hyundai to this day.
lol where is IHC ?
after seeing countless comments by the Hyundai “salesman” these are the only few comments he said I completely agree with.
Man, f*ck China
Thanks, Earthling, for your amazing insight and input.