Culture|Garage
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Tags: new models, wait, what?
They say imitation is the biggest form of flattery right? Recently we have seen a couple of car clones coming out of China and to name a couple: Toyota RAV-4, Scion XB, Smartcar, BMW X5, Honda CR-V.
The latest clone coming out of China is the Lifan 3-series, a 5-door MINI clone, similar in wheelbase to the MINI Clubman I suppose. The car will go on sale in China during the first half of the year.
Lifan decided to create a 5-door version of BMW Group’s MINI Cooper, and while its disproportionate to the original, a monkey could see its striking resemblance. Although I wish I could feel safe for the monkey during the crash testing of these Chinese clones.
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2 Responses to “MINI clone: Made in China”
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January 22nd, 2008 at 8:39 am
Poor Monkey.
I sat in a BFD Auto car at Detroit over the weekend. It aped the Suzuki Reno hatch overall, but the inside was straight out of a 2007 Corolla, down to the elecrtoluminescent gauges. Literally, the only difference was that they didn’t try to copy the Corolla steering wheel, they just used the steering wheel in all their other cars.
I wish something could be done about these clones. I honestly think once they are able to pass North American safety standards, they might come here, set up a dealer network, and go on sale, only to be murdered by legal teams from all the car companies they blatantly copy.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Honestly, I’m surprised Hyundai is still alive, it seems half of their cars are copycats also…, older sonata=2 generations old accord and so on…