Explaining the Chinese Car Industry and Chinese Cars
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China Car Times once said the Roewe 550 was the most beautiful Chinese car to date, however, since these photos came to light of a ’sports’ 550, we retract our statement. The 550 Sports is not an improvement on exterior aesthetics at all!
The black one on the left is the sports version, and the right one is the original version
China Car Times is hearing rumors that the recently launched Roewe 550 will under go some sports treatment and be re-badged as the MG6. MG and Roewe appear to continue the relationship that MG and Rover once had - Rover making classy cars, whilst MG made sports versions. The Roewe 550 is expected to go on the market around June/July this year all going well, meanwhile the MG version, the MG6 is expected to go on the market at the same time.
The Roewe 550 is based on a shortened Rover 75 platform which was developed by Rover under BMWs tenure as the owners of the British automaker. For more about the Roewe 550, and its state of the art technology, we recommend reading this article.
China Car Times thinks perhaps an MG6 would be a more suitable car, than a Brilliance Coupe.
The Roewe 550 will be officially launched for the market at a SAIC show in June 2008 according to our sources. The 550 was shown to the world at the recent Beijing Auto Show and gained wide attention from both domestic and foreign visitors to the show, many acclaimed the Roewe 550 as the finest Chinese made vehicle to date, and who are China Car Times to argue with that?
The Roewe 550 is an ‘intelligent sedan‘ according to SAIC, this comes in form of the D5 digital dashboard which is also known as a driving management system. What this exactly does, is still a bit of a mystery to China Car Times. Obviously its based on the infamous talking Maestro, a distant cousin of the modern day Roewe 550. The D5 digital dash offers the RMI (Roewe Multimedia Interface) which is a DVD screen, GPS navigation, an ‘information delivery system‘ The autobox transmission is also hooked up to the D5 system, which apparently lowers the risk of electrical failure.
Cool stuff aside, the Roewe 550 does have a safe and boring side (although, there is nothing wrong with that) The 550 does come jam packed with every safety acronym they could think of: Slip control system (SCS) ABS, EBD, CBC, MSR, TCS, VSC. The 550 is also built to European NCAP 5 star crash test safety standards, as well as the Chinese CNCAP 5 star safety standards. The 1.8T engine, a modified K-Series engine (hint, no blowing head gaskets) has been upgraded to Euro 5 emissions standards, and is very fuel efficient with it needing only 6l of fuel for 100km of travel.
And in other Roewe 550 news: SAIC are busy working on a hatchback version of the Roewe 550, and possibly an SUV. Who said they didnt get their monies worth out of the Rover-MG fire sale?
Straight outta Beijing:
A lot more photos to come, so click continue reading to see more!
Continue reading ‘Roewe 550: Out and about in the Beijing Show’
An excellent piece of information about the Roewe 550’s design story, and the way it was taken from nothing to being one of Chinas best made vehicles in the matter of a year:
The SAIC Design Team was briefed to create a brand new 4 door sedan to sit alongside the Roewe 750 in the Chinese market but also write a new chapter in the Roewe Brand’s development worldwide.
Being an all new design, this was a chance to produce a modern world class medium sized sedan, retaining the British-influenced dignity and elegance of the 750, whilst forging a new distinctive Chinese dynamic image and character for the first in a range of many new products from the SAIC’s Roewe premium brand.
A close knit International design team, based in UK and Shanghai, was led in the UK by SAIC Design Director Anthony Williams, and SAIC Motor UK Technical Centre General Manager, David Lindley.
You can read more about it on the Car Body Design site. Its an interesting article, and well worth the read.
We love the Roewe 550, which is most surely the car that will put the Chinese car industry on the map. Pictures have been released which give far more detail on the 550’s interior, and exterior.
Interior:
Now that full pictures of the car (which will be launched next week) are out, what do China Car Times readers think?
Roewe have released a few renderings of the soon to be released Roewe 550 compact sedan.
The interior appears to be modern, and neat - resembling the no-nonesense style that VW have perfected in the VW Bora, Jetta and Sagitar range. The dash looks rather futuristic, we do wonder what style the SAIC designers were going for, Star Trek perhaps? We hope the doors make that ‘swoosh‘ sound when opening, and the GPS Navigation unit has Lt. Uhura giving out directions commands.
Surely CCT readers will understand by now, that the Roewe 550 is one of China Car Times favorite new cars of late. We hear critisisms of the 550 such as ‘the chrome front is ugly‘, the ‘rear end is ugly‘ what a bunch of moaners! The 550 is expected to launch at the Beijing Auto Show making it just over a year since the Roewe 750 2.5 V6 was launched, the Roewe 750 1.8T is also expected to be launched at this years Beijing Auto Show.
Due to our distinct like of the Roewe 550, we dont really need any excuse to post any pictures of it! The Roewe 550 was spotted out filming a TV commercial, and a passerby happened to take a few photos!
The Roewe 550 has a 1.8 turbo assisted engine under the hood (the same as the much larger MG7/Roewe 750 1.8T) and is expected to come in at the same price as a mid range Ford Focus (120 - 160k rmb) Would we have one? Probably, probably even more if it were to receive the MG sports treatment.
The Roewe 750 2.5 V6 model has fallen in price by a staggering 32,000rmb. The cheapest model now starts at less than 200,000rmb, Roewe are offering potential customers loans that come with one year interest free.
The cheapest Roewe is now 190,980rmb for the 2.5 V6 inc leather seats, GPS, DVD and all the usual goodies. The 2.5 V6 prices have been slashed by 32,000rmb across the board to improve sales, and to make room for the 1.8T Roewe 750 which will be priced at 180,000rmb and up when it goes on the market this month.
The 2008 version of the Roewe 750 will be launched this month on the 20th. (20th March 2008)
Roewe fans will be pleased to know that the 2008 version doesn’t really have much difference to it, other than the front light water jet cleaners have been removed. Is this a case of Project Drive all over again? In January Roewe built somewhere between 10 and 30 cars (varies, according to source) but sold 651 Roewe 750’s in January.
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