Geely recently announced that it would start selling cars under its own name in the UK – over a decade later than originally planned.
Autocar first mentioned Geely in 2004, as part of a report on the emerging market and industry of China, because its first-ever car, the then six-year-old Haoqing supermini, was the cheapest of the lot. Staggeringly, it cost £2400 – but it was terribly basic and based on an ancient Daihatsu Charade.
Two years later, Geely formed a joint venture with Coventry-based Manganese Bronze Holdings (MBH) to build the upcoming LTI TX4 iteration of London’s iconic black cab in Shanghai, the plan being to tempt Chinese cabbies out of their trusty old Volkswagen Jetta and Santana saloons. (MBH began life making ship propellers, if the name had you wondering.)
This didn’t go very well (despite Geely painting a TX4 gold and dressing some poor local bloke as a Beefeater for the Shanghai motor show), partly because cabbies couldn’t see any benefit to the expensive TX4 and partly because Chinese cities banned diesel engines.
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So come late 2011, with its finances in a poor state, MBH decided to have a go at selling Geely cars in the UK – first the Emgrand EC7, a dull hatchback/saloon the size of a Skoda Octavia for the price of a Skoda Fabia: just £10,000.
MBH planned to create a network of 40 dealerships, with CEO John Russell saying: “We are aware of the success that Kia and Hyundai have had in the UK and we can work with Geely to achieve similar success.”
He added that a new model would arrive every year for the following five years. Second in line was the Ford Mondeo-rivalling Emgrand EC8, then a small MPV, a small SUV and “something that highlights the Chinese appetite for being experimental”.
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Would the first Chinese car be the MG6 in 2011 - Chinese origin with a tiny bit of bolting together at Longbridge?
IIRC there were attempts to import the ubiquitous Beijing 4x4 many years prior to all this?
A similar event happned sixty years ago when Daihatsu tried to sell the Compagnio here in the UK only six examples were sold during the time it was on sale here. Autocar tested the car and found that by British standards it was outdated by having a separate chassis,found that the brakes,handling,ride & steering were poor and the lack performance was positively sniggered at. On the otherside they liked the generous equipment (a radio was standard ) the interior plus the build quality was impressive as well. So at the time we breathed a sigh of relief but soon afterwards Honda cars came on sale with the tiny N500 and we laughed at that as well but ten years later Japanese cars had taken such a hold on the UK market there was an agreement to limit sales here. Sadly Daihatsu is no longer sold here but Chinese cars most certainly are some will be successful like Jaecoo/Omoda others may struggle but it's up to the European manufacturers to sharpen up and build reasonably priced cars that the average motorist can afford.