Englon was born from the ashes of the doomed Shanghai Maple brand, both of which are controlled by Geely. Shanghai Maple was Geely’s ultra cheap economy brand, and was reborn as the Englon brand in early 2010 as part of Geely’s restructuring. At the Beijing 2010 Auto Show Geely announced dozens of new cars in concept form, although Geely’s PR machine was eager to point out that were actually only one or two concepts on show and the rest were production cars that would see production ASAP.
In 2011 Englon will receive the following cars: SC5 (sedan version of SC5-RV), SC6 and SC6-RV (hatchback), Englon SC6, Englon SX5, and the Englon SX6 SUV.
The Englon brand will also be the host to the redesigned London taxi which will be based on a regular cars platform instead of its own custom made chassis in a bid to keep costs down and also make the cab more ‘China friendly’.
What was the marketing department thinking when they chose the name Englon? Awkward to pronounce, and not easy to roll off the tongue, it surely can’t be a name intended for the export market. And if it was intended for use in China exclusively why not just call it Yinglun which is true to the pinyin.