Archive for the ‘Shanghai Auto Show’ category
SAIC Sales Drop 8.45% in January
As with GM, SAIC sales have been dragged down by the Chinese new year celebrations, SAIC announced yesterday that the company saw sales drop 8.45% in January due to the fewer shopping days being available for consumers. Shanghai-GM sales fell by 4% in January and Shanghai-VW sales dropped by 2.65%. SAIC’s own sub brands, MG [...]
Shanghai Auto Show in Review – The Chinese Brands – Part One
Auto Shanghai 2011 was the largest auto show China has ever held. The Audi Q3, Mercedes Concept A, Citroen DS5 and Lambo Aventador amazed most visitors. But don’t forget the Chinese local brands, in a decade from now its likely that the majority of them will be household names the world over. Chery: As the [...]
Greatwall Wingle CL – Full size truckin’ from China
North American’s love their trucks, us Euro’s (and Asians) that actually want a full size truck cannot get anything from the states in our fair lands via the regular market, but thankfully enterprising souls here in China are already offering Ford F150 Raptors, Tacoma’s, Avalanches and various Dodges’ via the gray market import channel, but [...]
Nissan’s Beijing designed Compact Sport March/Micra
The Nissan March has not been a popular car in China since its launch here in late 2010, the model has not been taken to with the same excitement as the Ford Fiesta, which has itself become the standard for small cars in China. To improve sales Nissan are possibly mulling over the ability of [...]
Lotus L5 GT launched in Shanghai
The joint venture deal between Youngman and Proton to be build the Proton range of cars seems to have undergone a rebranding exercise in the past few months. The brand was officially labeled ‘Europestar’ in English and Chinese, but that has been dumped in favor of the pure Lotus brand on all of the economy [...]
Seat launched in China, bound to be a success
VAG had its three brands, VW, Audi and now Seat share half a hall at the Shanghai Auto Show, the only problem with that particular hall was that it was hot. Without a word of exaggeration, the VW hall was hotter than the sun after a weekend of heavy drinking and subsequent post-beer binges on [...]
Lorinser sells 810bhp S70 for 4.38 million RMB
German styling and tuning company Lorinser, sold their flagship S70 sedan to a Chinese millionaire at the Shanghai Auto Show according to early reports. The Shanghai Auto Show has become a hotbed of car buying activity with the show not just being about press eyes and letting the consumers walk the aisles, major deals are [...]
This is a 30 year old car – Besturn B30 at the Shanghai Auto Show
The Shanghai Auto Show is home to quiet a few different oddities and surprises, think of it as a modern day automotive freak show if such a thing were to exist. Look at the car to the left of this text, that car is the Besturn B30, and its riding on the mk2 Jetta platform, [...]
Geely’s MG3 fighter
Geely are planning to bring the big guns out in their fight to make the Emgrand range of cars popular in China, they launched the series with the EC7 sedan and then the hatch and then recently they launched the full size EC8, now they are readying the EC6-RV. The awkwardly named EC6-RV does not [...]
Zotye at the Shanghai Auto Show
Remember Zotye? Small privately owned fish are easy to forget when they are swimming in a sea of state owned sharks, but Zotye have managed to keep themselves independent and even steer themselves away from the mighty consolidation nets that were cast out by the central government, rumor has it that Zotye pushed away Beijing [...]
Spyker in the Shanghai Auto Show
For all luxury car makers China is the place to be if you want to survive, there is little to no consumption of super cars in Europe at the moment in the short term but the Middle Kingdom is bucking the trend on practically every front. Spyker cars are now sold in China, although they [...]
Subaru XV concept at the Shanghai Auto Show
Subaru are doing well in China despite them being an import based company, they until recently did not have a joint venture in China but they have since signed up with Chery to build Subaru’s in Dalian City in North East China, Dalian has become a hot spot for Japanese investment in China over the [...]
Cat fighting models upstage the Shanghai Auto Show
Not all the action was happening on the floor of the Shanghai Auto Show, it appears that a good chunk of the action was happening in the ladies dressing room as well. 25 year old Chinese model Huang Ying is a relatively famous model in China, or rather her fairly ample bust is, according to [...]
Chery Eastar unveiled in Shanghai
For Chery their seems to be no cohesive design theme going through their brands, probably due to them using design houses such as Pininfarina and then also using their own internal design team to make a few models – the lack of a structured design theme is really bringing them down in international circles. On [...]
Why Baojun is going to be big and the Chinese should be worried
Shanghai GM is a slick machine, the company has introduced the best selling Buick and Chevrolet brands using models that were cherry picked from GM’s global portfolio, the results can be seen in the monthly sales stats that see Chevrolet’s product line trump Ford’s, the Buick range seemingly does the same as well. Baojun is [...]
Fiat 500 to launch in China – sales to begin in September ’11
Fiat have recently signed a joint venture deal with Guangzhou Auto but oddly at the Shanghai Auto Show Fiat did not share a stand with its newly beloved partner, instead it was in the next hall over and showing the Fiat 500. The Fiat 500 is not expected to be one of the Fiat models [...]
Beijing Auto’s T60 sedan – its a Saab 93
What happens when you buy a rapidly aging sedan platform from a Swedish company owned by Americans? Of course you get laughed out of town, especially as everyone told you to hang in there until you get something of Saab that was created in the last decade. Enter the T60: The T60′s sole goal in [...]
Geely’s Li Shu Fu has peons cast aside to inspect new cab
All was good on the second day of the media days in Shanghai last Wednesday, well it wasn’t all good as most of the stands had immediately shifted from PR/Media day to Sales Mode by lunchtime and not too many Chinese companies had press kits available, which is pretty typical of Chinese car companies – [...]
Ford confirms 15 new cars for China before 2015
At the Shanghai Auto Show Ford confirmed that they are seriously planning to ramp up their China offerings in the next 4 years. Ford’s current China offerings are based around the Focus, Mondeo, Fiesta, S-Max and the imported Ford Edge making their line up somewhat limited when compared to their friends over at GM. Ford [...]
Brilliance 530 sedan to be 1.5T powered
Brilliance only revealed a single concept car at the 2011 Shanghai Auto Show, they were supposed to also show their new SUV, but it was pulled back at the last minute leading to a very empty stage. One of their big launches was the new 530 sedan, the 530 ushers in a new design theme [...]
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