Chinese Car Clones

Talk to anyone who has shopped on a trip to China and you'll hear stories about high-quality knockoffs at bargain-basement prices. It seems everything from high-end watches to designer clothes have their Chinese equivalent tagged at fire-sale prices. This trend doesn't stop there and includes big-ticket items like cars and trucks. Manufacturers have long complained that the Chinese business community has little respect for intellectual property rights, and a tour around the Beijing show is proof that the 120 or so local manufacturers vying for market share aren't relying on in-house designs to get in on the action.

While some of the knockoffs are dead ringers, others are close enough. Such is the case with the Lifan 320, which borrows heavily from the Mini. The big difference between the two is that the Chinese variant has four doors compared to the Mini's two.

In the exact duplicate category, there's the Great Wall Coolbear. Cool name, not original looks. This time Great Wall uses the last-generation Scion xB as its template and copies it right down to the size of the badge, but with different graphics. Even the instruments, which are in the center of the Scion's dash, is faithfully re-created in the Coolbear.

Many of the clones are meant for domestic consumption only, so most manufacturers, if they are aware of the clone at all, take a hands-off approach. However, the Shuanghuan Noble, a lookalike for the smart car, made it to the Frankfurt show last fall, where Mercedes-Benz, smart's parent, threatened legal action if the Noble were sold in Europe. Perhaps it was the car's motto "Smarter than the rest" that got Mercedes' attention.

Another Mercedes knockoff comes from a company whose initials, BYD, stand for Build Your Dream. Well, they're building someone else's dream of a car with the BYD F8, which is a ringer for the Mercedes-Benz CLK. The cars share the same quad-headlamp look with a horizontal slotted grille. One difference is that the F8 has a retractable hardtop as opposed to the CLK's soft top.

While the Shuanghuan S CEO looks like a BMW X5, enough so, that BMW also threatened suit if the vehicle were sold outside China, you'll find that beneath the skin, it's nothing like the original. Instead of unit-body construction with an independent suspension, you get a trucklike frame with leaf springs. As with any fake, caveat emptor.

Although Lifan denies that its new "3-Series" has anything to do with the Mini, the parallels between this new China-built econobox and the iconic Brit subcompact are hard to miss. From the rounded front fenders and hood to the squared-off back and contrasting color roof, the Lifan 320 does a passable imitation of the real thing.
The big difference, which Lifan is sure to point out, is that the 320 has four doors. Still, the shape of the headlamps and the upside Mini grille can't be called original. Certainly, the 320 won't be a match for the Mini when it comes to performance. Under the hood is a 1.3-liter 4-cylinder engine driving the front wheels. A 1.1-liter version is expected later this year. Still, one area where a knockoff shines is price — this China-only model retails for under $7500 or about a third of what a moderately loaded Cooper costs in the U.S.

From : Road & Track