Today in China Concept Cars (CCC): the Chery Fulwin II Coupe, a sporty two-door concept car that debuted at the 2006 Beijing Auto Show. It was an important car for Chery as it marked the debut of a new design language and the debut of the new Fulwin 2 series.
The background
The 2005 Chery Fulwin (internal name: A11).
The Fulwin 2 series was a new line of cars, in addition to the existing Chery Fulwin sedan. The Fulwin was Chery’s first car, based on the first-generation Seat Toledo. Production in China started in 1999, so it was a seriously old car.
In 2004, Chery launched a slightly updated variant of the Fulwin, which was called the Chery Cowin (Qiyun, 旗云.). For a while, the Fulwin and Cowin sedans were sold alongside each other, as is the habit in China. But in 2006, production of the Fulwin finally ended. The Cowin was manufactured until 2010 when it was updated to the Cowin 2. Production of this car continued all the way until 2016!
You can read more about the Fulwin/Cowin and other Chinese Seat-based cars in this article by Erik. Perhaps later, if I have time, I will write a more in-depth article about the Toledo-based Chery cars.
The 2004 Chery QQ.
Let’s get back now to the year 2005 when Chery started with the development of the Fulwin 2 series. At that time, Chery sold the aforementioned Fulwin and Cowin sedans, and they also sold the (in)famous Chery QQ minicar. Production of the QQ started in 2004.
Chery wanted to position the Fulwin 2 series above the QQ, and somewhere besides and a bit below the Cowin. The internal code name for the series was A13. Chery planned four cars: a sedan (A13), a hatchback (A13HB), a wagon (A13B), and the concept coupe (A13C).
To kick-start the project, Chery decided to launch a concept car at the 2006 Beijing Auto Show. This car eventually became the Chery Fulwin 2 Coupe.
Chery Fulwin II Coupe
The design of the concept car was outsourced to the Italian studio Torino Design. The Italians came up with an attractive compact coupe. As usual, there was some confusing naming going on. Initially, Torinio called the concept car the ‘Lei’ (雷). This means thunder. That is a play on the literal translation of Fengyun (风云), which means storm. However, when the car debuted in Beijing the Lei name was nowhere to be seen. However (again), the Storm name would later return on a Torino-designed sedan which would eventually become the Fulwin 2 hatchback. But that’s outside the scope of this story. More on all that in a follow-up post!
The first media images
The first media images were released by Torino Design a few months before the start of the Beijing Auto Show. The images were a bit basic, like this one, showing the car in motion but without a driver figure inside. But the design itself was cool and very different from anything Chery was doing at the time.
The second image that Torino released showed the interior. It looked sporty, with a 3-spoke steering wheel, a single dial, and a small screen for the infotainment. Quite modern for 2006.
More media images
Near the start of the show, Chery released a set of images of the actual concept car. At the time, it was still named Lei, according to the front license plate area. The images showed a bright yellow two-door coupe with a large Chery logo at the front. Interestingly, it didn’t have a traditional grille. The air went in via the inlets in the bumper.
It looked great from the side. It had small mirrors based on a double stalk. The door handles were partially receded. It had sporty five-spoke gray alloy wheels and darkened rear lights. The size of the concept was 4082/2000/1406, with a 2527 wheelbase.
At the back, it had Fulwin II Coupe on the license plate area. As we saw above, it had Lei on the front license plate. This kind of confusing naming scheme was very common at the time, with Chinese car makers messing around with Chinese names, literal translations, and pinyin names.
But no matter all that, the Fulwin II looked great from the back as well. The Chery logo was neatly integrated into the trunk, and it had a racy single exhaust pipe.
The debut
The Fulwin II Coupe concept car debuted in April at the 2006 Beijing Auto Show. I lived in Beijing at the time, and I vividly remember how Chinese car makers tried out all sorts of marketing and advertising. With the debut of the Fullwin II Chery fielded two scarcely dressed ladies, which was still allowed at the time, and a conventionally dressed lady playing a real violin.
Chery made a lot of the windshield wipers, as per the press releases at the time. The wipers were called Butterfly-shaped wipers. The wipers were hidden in two recessed areas on each side of the windshield, which, with some fantasy, looked like the wings of a butterfly.
The Fulwin II was a great looker, attracting folks and media to the Chery booth, which is indeed the idea behind a concept car. Sadly, unlike the media images pretended, the actual concept car did not have an interior. The windows were totally black and the doors didn’t open.
The result
At the time, Chery said that the Fulwin II Coupe was based on a new mid-size platform. That was probably not true for the concept itself, but it was surely true for the cars that followed the concept.
The Fullwin II Coupe concept made quite an impression at the auto show, and many folks wondered if Chery had any plans for production. Well, Chery had no such plans. But the design of the concept car did actually return in the entire Fullwin 2 series, just as Chery intended.
This series included a sedan and a hatchback, and the basic design remained in place until… 2016! More on all that in a later post, if y’all give me enough time. One little note to finish this story: with the concept car, Chery used II for two, but with the real thing, Chery used 2 for two. Why? No idea. Does Chery know why? Did they even notice? Bet they didn’t. See you next time!