Our history begins in late 1999, where Li Shutong, younger brother of the renown Li Shufu who has founded Geely, decided to take a different path and ends up founding his own company JM Star (Shanghai Jieshida Group – 上海杰士达集团). An issue arised, that many of our long-time readers might expected – nation-wide licence to produce cars. Without it, you run into the issue of not being to sell cars outside of the home province, which is obviously very limiting.

By this point, Chinese government was fed up with the shenanigans coming from Guandgong province, and was not willing to issue new licences, so Li Shutong had to get creative. The struggling Jiangbei Machinery Factory still had a licence for producing cars, which they used for several CKD operations under the name Meilu and their own take on the Suzuki Alto during the 1990s, but by now the jig was basically up. Li Shutong has sensed an opportunity and reached an agreement, which ended up with these two companies being under the same roof, and thus being able to use the licence. To get some cashflow going, a facility in Fengjing Industrial Park (Shanghai) would make scooters for now.

Shanghai Jiashida Auto Parts would design the new car, Jiangbei Machinery would make these cars in their facility in Jilin, and Shanghai Jieshida Automobile Sales would act as a distributor.

This left the question of what the new car would be. On such a short notice, of course the car would end up being a stopgap measure on Li Shutong way to bigger and better things. SJAP has approached Dongfeng Citroën joint venture, and when an official collaboration did not happen, they have instead moved to the suppliers that were supplying parts for the local Citroën Fukang. The car wasnt a 100% copy of Fukang though, several other companies participated in the design and development of the end product, the Meilu JJ7130, ended up rolling off the production line in Jilin on april 28th 2002.

Technical specifications include:
– Exterior dimensions: 4075x1705x1430 mm
– Wheelbase: 2540 mm
– Front/rear track: 1423/1424 mm
– Weight: 1100 kg
– Engine: Toyota’s 8A-FE, Inline 4, DOHC
– Displacement: 1342cc
– Compression ratio: 9,3:1
– Power: 63kw/6000 rpm
– Torque: 110nm/5200 rpm
– Gearbox: 5 speed manual
– Fuel consumption 5 liters/100 km
– Top speed 145 km/h
– Base price: 69,800 yuan

The new car was sold at about 2/3rds of the Fukang price, while being more stylish on the outside and better equipped inside, for example it had power windows. Engine was also different compared to Citroen. It was Toyota’s 8A-FE engine, quite popular choice for chinese car makers of the time. The JJ7130 ended up actually having superior in performance compared to the equivalent Fukang, which featured only 8 valve engines.

The new company was certainly ambitious, and proceeded to announce another variants all based on the Citroen Fukang basis:

– JJ7131 (more upmarket looking hatchback, same technical specs)

– JJ7132 (sedan, length 4580mm, weight 1120 kg, otherwise identical specs).

The cars even appeared in MIIT: JJ7132 would have a 2 slot grille painted as the body, instead of 3 slot chrome grille. JJ7131 remained unchanged in the entry.

Fate would have it other way though. Given the poor build quality, the JJ7130 was met with lukewarm response and the production ended just 4 months later on august 5th 2002 after only 457 units were built. It would be the last time a car would bear the name Meilu, and the company was partially bought by Geely, after Li Shutong became disillusioned with the car industry. Author’s note: It is claimed by some that the JJ7131 made it into the market, I wasnt able to verify that claim.

P.S: Before we move to the ressurection under SMA, here is an interesting note about the JM Star JJ7130’s entry in the MIIT: Note the different round logo, different bumper – square housing of the fog lights, which is closer to the centre of the body. the bumper protection “strips” seem to be shaped differently too on this vehicle. There is also a lip running around the entire lower part of the front bumper. I think its likely that this is actually a prototype of the car, rather than a different (proposed) trim. There is no other picutre of the JJ7130 with this setup to my knowledge.

Geely’s Li Shufu did want to move his car company up market, after all by this point he was only really making various cars based on the Xiali/Daihatsu Charade platform, so he went about restructuring the now dormant car maker, renaming it Shanghai Maple (Shanghai Huapu – 上海华普), also known by its abbreviation SMA.

New cars would have to wait, and the stopgap measure of cars running on Fukang basis would have to soldier on for a little bit more. As the old saying goes, there’s nothing more permanent than a stopgap measure, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The general public was made first aware of the upcoming new car maker on 2003 Shanghai Auto Show in April, and the first car launched on the 8th of august the same year.

The Galewind (Biaofeng – 飙风, SXE7130) was unsurprisingly just a JJ7130, built now in Shanghai. On a sidenote – the former Jilin factory would end up in the hands of the shortlived Jilin Tongtian Automobile company, which made the Tongtian Glow. The badges originally (on brand with Geely’s tradition of confusing branding) still said JM Star at the front,…

…. on the inside, on the new steering wheel,…

….and even at the back. But we can see on the left there 上海华普 – Shanghai Huapu, and on the lower right, the new SXE designation. JM Star did still exist, but the focus has shifted to making motorbikes, which they did so untill around 2012.

Car reviewers back then praised the engine (which was still a Toyota 8A-FE one, but built by geely and thus renamed MR479Q) and the price (which was set at 59,900 yuan), but did point out the worse build quality compared to the original Citroën. Maybe you are starting to see a pattern here. What has surprised me personally, is the mention of lack of seatbelts on the rear seats…

Some new specs got included, and some did change:
– Fuel tank: 51 liters
– Fuel consumption: 5.9 liters
– 0-100 km/h acceleration time: 19 seconds
– Top Speed: 160 km/h
– Tires: 165/70R14
– Trunk size with seats up/down: 370 liters/1260 liters

Precisely one month after the Galewind got launched, the car maker had a launch ceremony of a new model – the M203 (SMA7150). It was very grandiose, and it is where our cover picture is from – stunt driver Ke Shouliang did push the new car to its limits. The car, although still based on the Fukang underpinnings, was a reimagined version of the stillborn JJ7131, with a bigger engine, and more contemporary looking interior. The engine was a modified 1.3 MR479Q unit with increased stroke from (69mm to 77mm), called MR479QA.

Technical specs:
– Exterior dimensions: 4183x1710x1430 mm
– Displacement: 1498cc
– Compression ratio: 9,8:1
– Power: 69kw/6000 rpm
– Torque: 128nm/3400 rpm
– Top Speed: 170 km/h
– 0-100 km/h acceleration time: 16 seconds
– Tires: 175/65R14

It would enter the market on january the next year with the sticker price of 79,900 yuan, although in march a lower trim level got introduced, which knocked the starter price to only 69,900 yuan.

Later in the year, between october and december, the badging on the Galewind has changed to display SMA logos. You can see the interior just below, and the rest of the car little bit further down still.

2004

After the first batch of exported cars (393 cars for 8 countries) left the port in early 2004, the time has came to prepare for a grand car show of that year, which was held in May in Beijing. Every chinese car maker tries to make a big splash, as the outreach on the biennial Shanghai and Beijing car shows is exponentially bigger compared to some small town event, and SMA was not going to waste this years opportunity. They have announced on the show the launch of Galewind 2.

You would be hard pressed to find a difference on the outside, the good stuff has happened inside – the car has received the interior from M203. The starter price also dropped to 51,900 yuan.

The Galewind rally car has also made an appearance on the show, but we will talk about the racing endeavours of the car maker later.

A scale model of a proposed M306 has been also shown on the car show, as far as I know, nothing has ever came of it.

I am unsure when did CI-1 concept car made its appearance, it could have been on this show too.

It was a full scale model made in cooperation with an italian company. If it went on sale, it would have been called M506 and have a 2 liter engine but alas, it wasnt meant to be.

Hovewer, it wasnt just a parade of projects that wouldnt see the light of day. M303, sedan version of M203, made its first appearance here.

It was not quite a production car, as by the time it would start rolling off the production lines in october the rear light units would change design…

….and the interior would loose a very cool looking radio with a big screen.

Compared to M203, the following specs have changed:
Length: 4435 mm
Curb weight: 1160 kg
Top speed: 160 km/h
Fuel consumption: 6,5 l/100km
– Trunk size: 520 liters

The production car ended up getting launched on October 20th 2004, starting at 65,888 yuan, and ended up being named Marindo 303 (Haiyu 303 – 海域303, SMA7151). The M203 would have been around that time priced at around 62,999 yuan.

The brand has established itself well, unlike with the JM Star, with 15 000 cars being produced in 2004. The cars saw a growing market success, and the newly appointed president of SMA Xu Gang did have plans to really make the brand more upscale compared to Geely. Geely at this time was still stuck making Xiali-based cars, and SMA was planned to make modern mid-size cars.

2005

Xu Guang also decided to have a goal for 2005, called the 21828 project. It would among other things mean the production for 2005 reaching 20 000 units. The long term goal would be to It has been also decided that year 2005 was the year to really bank on the sporting sucesses, and ended up making what the company claims is a “first hot hatch” – Hisoon 205 (海迅205, SMA7150/SMA7150E).

Released in april of that year at the Shanghai Auto Show, for the price of 62,888 yuan, it was basically a M203 with a sporty bodykit and a boy-racer interior.

With the 0-100 km/h acceleration estimated at around 18 seconds, calling it a hot-hatch is a bit of a stretch, but it undoubtedly looked very cool AND kept winning rallies in its class. Engine was MR479QA yet again, without any difference.

Time moves on whether we like it or not, and so the oldest Galewind 2 was unceremoniously dropped in the summer of 2005: To reflect this, M203 got renamed to Marindo 205 (Haiyu 205 – 海域205, SMA7131) on July 26th and now served as the new entry level car. The MR479QA engine got replaced by the smaller MR479Q unit, and such the top speed dropped to 150 km/h. Not only the speed dropped, but so did the price, to very reasonable 52,999 yuan. That was just a thousand more than its predecessor. Interesting change did happen with the styling of the car, as it seems that the Galewind rear bumper replaced the more beefy M203 one when the car got renamed.

As I have opened the topic of name changes, I cant help but remember reading an article in a car magazine as a young lad about Daewoo Kalos, and the author mentioning that the confusing naming policy always hides a rather ordinary car. This is very much the case with cars from SMA aswell as you will see further on.
Some time later there was a replacement/additional version called SMA7131E, which didnt have orange indicators at the back, sadly, I dont know any more specifics than that. I would have imagined the change happened sometime in early 2006.

In september of 2005 was very busy month for SMA. On the 1^st, a new model got released for sale – Marindo 305 (Haiyu 305 – 海域305, SMA7151). The looks remained, but the car now featued a 1.8 litre engine called MR481Q. Price was set at 76,888 yuan.

Technical specs:
– Displacement: 1762cc
– Compression ratio: 9,6:1
– Power: 83kw/5600 rpm
– Torque: 157nm/3400 rpm

I am not sure, but the car might have been called Marindo 205H (Haiyu 205H – 海域205H) during developement. One such car got presented beforehand, but the badges still suggested it had a 1.5 liter engine. Since only the model on the fake licence plate differed, the fact i havent been able to find any significance of it, and the car otherwise seemed to remain the same, I have not included it in this article. Also, as of writing of this article, i wasnt able to find when the 1.8 liter engine in this bodyshell concluded production.

In the same busy month, SMA participated both at the Frankfurt Auto Show and Shanghai Industry Fair. Frankfurt show had more prestige, but ultimately resulted in a neglegable amount of importance for this artice at least, with most of the cars on the Geely booth being Geelys, and only the Marindo (with a set of questionable tuner wheels) making its appearance at the booth.

Shanghai Industry Fair on the other hand, despite not being the “main” event held earlier in the year, has shown many interesting cars and prototypes from SMA. One of the new cars was called Hisoon 206 (Haixun 206 – 海讯206). It was very much like the Hisoon 205 that was already for sale, with some more indepth design changes.

Agressive bodykit, together with rather unique trapezoid-shaped protective plastic stripe on the side made for interesting looks. At the back, the spoiler has moved from below the rear window to the top edge of the trunk lid, and a set of fake tail lights in D pillars were mounted.

The car would end up getting into production, surprisingly enough not toned down, but with some extra differences compared to this “work in progress” prototype.

Another new car revealed on the show was a Haishang 206 (海尚206). It was the Fukang based hatchback as one would expect by now, but with a totally redesigned front end.

The car featured no spoiler nor badging at the back, and it was aimed at females. What I particularly like about the design is the fashionable colored edge of the grille, side trim and other small details like that done in a different color than the car body itself.

The seats looked quite fancy.

Another concept cars featured a wire-frame M303….

…..a diesel powered M303 (unknown specs)….

and a Hysoul 305 (Haishang 305 – 海尚305) with a hybrid powertrain (again, unknown specs).

The Hysoul 305 was first shown when it has entered the production on september 1st, but it would get officially launched for sale in Guanghzou on november 21st. If you are following along (I doubt you are, because I barely can and I am the one writing this article), thats on the same day when the Marindo 305 got launched. Hysoul 305 has become the new top of the range car for SMA, signified obviously by the audi-esque grille (which in my opinion looks quite tacky). It was exclusively avaliable with the 1.8 liter MR481Q engine, no hybrid.

Interior got a chrome trim, to make it feel more upmarket.

Technical specs.
– Dimensions: 4435x1710x1430
– Top Speed: 180 km/h
– 0-100 km/h acceleration time: 12 seconds
– Tires: 185/60R14

The base price would be set at 68,999 yuan. Just ten days prior, the prices for the rest of the range got adjusted to following sums:

Marindo 205: 50,000 yuan
Marindo 303: 59,999 yuan
Hisoon 205: 59,999 yuan
Marindo 305? fate unknown… It is possible that it got axed after the Hysoul 305 launched?

The Haishang 206 would make an appearance on the Guangzhou car show again, this time with badges and cool stickers. Badges looked like somebody’s hand writing, though the model has just said Hysoul, no sight of 206 being anywhere. I have also stumbled upon a translation of “HuaYau Lady’s Car” in official documents. The plans were to launch it with 1.3 and 1.5 liter engines sometimes in 2006.

The year 2005 would end with 24434 units produced.

2006

2006 was seemingly a year of award collection for the company. Hysoul MA would get a the chinese “Fashion Car of the year” award for the year 2005 in january, quickly followed by an award given to the Marindo series of “Shanghai Automotive Consumer Satisfaction Model” for the year 2005 (and it would retain that title for 2006 aswell)

On march 8th 2006, a model previewed the previous year got launched. Now called Hyshine AA (Haixuan AA – 海炫AA), it was the car for female drivers. Only avaliable engine was a 1.5 liter, and the car has received some minor changes from the way it looked last year. Much like the Hisoon 206 concept car from last year’s Industry Fair, the car got a set of fake taillights in D pillars. They were smaller in size, and looked less like an afterthought. The indicators at the back were also clear, not amber anymore. On the contrary, the front lights have received amber indicators now. Badges ended up looking standard, no fancy font this time. The price was set at 63,900 yuan.

There is a problem though. I actually do not belive the car got produced. There was a big buzz, but I have not seen a single picture of a Hyshine in traffic, or in different colors (although 5 colors got advertised, I think the pictures from official pictures are just hue-shifted in photoshop).

There is only one set of pictures I have found of the car “in the wild”. They look like those for official application at Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which is a government branch that a car must pass trough before it gets allowed to be sold. The car, in its lastest evolution, bears yellow test plates. I was skeptical of other cars being sold later on aswell, but I at least found evidence of those getting sold abroad. This is the only car I was unable to find evidence of getting sold at all, despite it even receiving an export name R50.

The first actual lineup change of 2006 would happen in april, when the Hisoon AB (Haixun AB – 海讯AB) got launched.

Fitted with the 1.8 liter engine, it was the same car that we have already mentioned on the Shanghai Industry Fair, with slight differences. It had featured very cool black headlights, and the rear lights changed to have clear indicators aswell. Price stood at 67.890 yuan. The production of it started earlier in the year, on January 18th

You might have noticed it is not called Hisoon 206 anymore, and thats for a very good reason. At the start of may, rest of the lineup followed suit. All of the existing cars would drop the numbers at the end of their names, and instead have either AA or MA at the end of their names. If it was AA, then it was a hatchback, if it was MA, then it was a sedan. I guess the second letter was like an evolution of said series, with subsequent cars going trough the alphabet.

This is also where my theory from earlier comes in, although pictures are scarce, I found cars labeled still as Marindo 205 with both clear and amber taillight indicators, so I belive at least from the point of renaming all the hatchbacks would use clear taillights.

Sadly the theory cant be fully verified as the only Hisoon AA picture i have from the back has amber indicators.

If the changes werent enough already, on June 17th the Hysoul MA would get downgraded somewhat, as the range was expanded with the 1.5 engine. New base price stood at 65,999 yuan, with the 1.8 now starting at 71,999 yuan. The 1.8 didnt get more expensive per-say, it is just that the engine was now tied to existing higher trim level, which was present from the moment the car launched. Hisoon AB would end up being somewhat downgraded aswell. The Hisoon AA got killed off by november, with AB receiving the 1.5 engine from it, and now starting at 56,789 yuan. Price and avaliability of the version with 1.8 engine remained unchanged.

Production for the year 2006 stood at 30505 units

2007

The 2007 would see Xu Guang being removed as the president of SMA. The branding within the group was rather confused, as Geely in the meantime would introduce both modern small cars like the 2005 Freedom Cruiser and the 2006 King Kong, and also bigger cars like the 2006 Vision. With the constant price cuts it was not a surprise that Maples ended up being the cheapest cars of their size. A simple, relatively spacious car that is cheap has been a recipe for success worldwide, yet with the aging lineup and damaged reputation due to quality issues early on the future didnt look particularly great.

New car models kept rolling in for the time being though. On january 18th, two new models got introduced. Marindo MB (Haiyu MB – 海域MB) that had rather distinctive cadillac styling. In my opinion it hid the origin of the car remarkably well, and looked much bettter than Hysoul MA. The car actually started being produced on September 28th of previous year.

Technical specifications (Marindo MB):
– Dimensions: 4490x1710x1430
– Top speed: 160 km/h (1.5) / 175 km/h (1.8)
– Weight: 1170 kg
– Tires: 185/60R14

Hisoon MA (Haixun MA – 海迅MA) was the other car launched that day, and it was basically sedan version of the Hisoon AB. The rear lights were the same that Marindo/Hysoul MA used, but they were blacked out, so in a black paintjob it looked seriously cool.

Technical specifications (Hisoon MA):
– Dimensions: 4435x1710x1430
– Top Speed: 160 km/h (1.5) / 180 km/h (1.8)
– Weight: 1130 kg (for the 1.5)
– Tires: 175/65R14

Both cars were launched with 1.5 and 1.8 engines, which were unchanged from their previous appearances. Only the names changed from MR478QA/MR481Q to JL479QA/JL481Q.

Launch prices were as follows:
58,800 yuan (Hisoon MA 1.5)
60,899 yuan (Marindo MB 1.5)
66,899 yuan (Marindo MB 1.8)
69,800 yuan (Hisoon MA 1.8)

On April 21st, a Shanghai international car show was held. It would feature a Marindo M100 prototype, where the M100 stands for the car running on 100% methanol fuel.

Geely has also shown a golden british taxi, still badged as a LTI (Lodnon Taxis International), but which would eventually be produced by the sucessor brand to Shanghai Maple – Shanghai Englon (and later just only Englon)

April 2007 would also see some more price changes, for the most part downwards.
Marindo AA (1.3) 44999 yuan
Marindo MA (1.5) 54999 yuan
Hisoon AB (1.5) 56789 yuan, price for 1.8 remained the same (at 67,890 yuan)
Hisoon MA (1.5) 58899 yuan
Hysoul 1.5 59999 yuan
Hysoul 1.8 65999 yuan

A month later, the last of complete lineup rebranding would happen. It would just consist of removing the suffixes, so cars would now be just called Marindo, Hisoon and Hysoul. However, I do not know if that affected the cadillac-esque Marindo MB. This car would get renamed to Haifeng (海锋) on October 28th later in the same year. I am not aware of any english translations of that name. The chinese designation for the 1.5 liter Haifeng at least after the renaming was SMA7152E3, for the 1.8 liter version it was SMA7182E3 (I do not know if with the original name the designations were different).

Going on another tangent, going on a bit of a mystery, but I am not sure if a slight design change happened together with the renaming, or if it was introduced slightly later. All the cars with “round” front headlights would get a new shape of indicators. Beforehand, they were round and small, but now they would fill up all of the outer edge of the headlights and thus have two sharp edges. The oldest car I found with the new indicators is from June.

What I do know though is that May would see the first time a 1.3 engine would get into a SMA sedan. It was the basic Marindo which got it, thus the base price plummeted to only 48,888 yuan. Hisoon hatchback would also see further price reductions, 51888 yuan for the 1.5 engine and 59888 yuan for the 1.8.

Production for the year 2007 stood at 31997 units, sales were at 31196 units.

2008-2010

As time went on, it seems like the chinese media lost interest in the brand and coverage got quite sparce. 2008, 2009 and 2010 are full of “ifs”. I will present what I have uncovered.

April 2008 – SMA participated on Beijing Auto Show. A new facelift of the hatchback would get presented there, called Haiyue (海悦, SMA7153). It was supposed to get launched after the show, but it took somewhere until either late 2008 or early 2009 for the car to actually get to the market, I do not know when exactly.

It was the most thorough redesign, as it also got a totally redesigned interior.

It is possible it has replaced the basic Marindo hatchback. The Marindo sedan would continue on until the end of the brand. Hysoul stuck around for at least 2009. Hisoon sedan was produced until september 2009 (possibly longer), hatchback stuck around probably till 2010. I do not know when Haifeng ended production.

July 2008 would see the Hysoul receiving the 1.3 engine which would start at 54,388 yuan. Hisoon sedan would get 1.3 engine at some unknown point aswell – my only evidence is this video.

I do not have production figure for year 2008, but the yearly sales stood at 37017 units

April of 2009 would see the last hurrah of the SMA brand, as the Haijing (海景) got its premiere here. It was a slightly modified Geely Vision.
The car would go on sale in june with 1.8 engine for 69,888 yuan, and 1.5 liter engine would get added on november for 63,888 yuan. For the first time, the engines werent the same units as in the fukang-based cars.

Technical parameters:
Dimensions: 4682x1725x1485mm
Wheelbase: 2602mm
Trunk capacity: 560 liters
Fuel tank capacity: 50 liters

JL4G18D – gasoline powered inline 4, DOHC
Displacement 1792cc
102kw/6200 rpm
172nm/4200 rpm

JL4G15D – gasoline powered inline 4, DOHC
Displacement 1498cc
78kw/6000 rpm
135nm/4800 rpm

Sales in the year 2009 stood at 39814 units.

By the mid 2010, the brand was axed, all Fukang based models got discontinued. The recently introduced Haijing would get rebranded to Englon on the first of january, and the underpinnings would live until 2022 when the old Geely Emgrand got finally phased out. The Maple brand would get reintroduced in 2019 as a budget brand for Geely EVs. But seeing that the models have been now gradually merged into Livan brand, I do not belive the ressurection will be long lasting.

Tangent – return of the JM Star:

In october 2024 i have learned, trough the lovely website auta5p.eu, of a ressurection of the JM Star brand. The car was named JM Star MBG3000 EV. I havent been able to find alot of details so far on the car, as it is a LSEV, alot of the details get hazy… The mention i am able to find is the car got showcased in 2009 in Copenhagen during a climate conference, as per the info of Zdeněk Patera, administrator of auta5p.eu:

Sales were planned, but the car wouldnt pass european safety checks, so those plans never materialised. I suppose Dan Long AB was the company that brought the car over.

The car appeared for offer on the JM Star website in 2011.

I am not certain if it is the same car or not. Perhaps its more logical the copenhagen car got repainted and moved to museum in germany, where such car resides today:

The car was also known as Yangzhou Kaiersimai TM-12 EV. Which came first, TM-12 EV or MBG3000 EV?

Exports:

The previous section made a great segue to delve into export markets. Right off the bat we run into a problem, lack of informations. The old SMA website has posted countries where they are active, I am not sure of its accuracy. There was no hyperlink directing to whomever was selling those cars in said countries, plus some of the countries I know got the cars weren’t mentioned there.
These are the countries that were mentioned, but for which I havent found any further details, in alphabetical order:

– Bahrain
– Cyprus
– Ghana
– Greece
– Guatemala
– Jordan
– Lebanon
– Mexico
– Morocco
– Oman
– Portugal
– Puerto Rico
– Senegal
– Slovenia
– Turkmenistan
– United Arab Emirates
– Venezuela
– Vanuatu
– Yemen

Before we continue forward, i think its for the best if we first clear out the model names. Almost every export car was named in the same fashion, for example C31.
– C, probably meaning civilian – those were the normal models. R – “racing”, those were the Hisoon models, a.k.a. the hot-variants
– first digit, that tells us the engine displacement – 3 = 1.3, 5= 1.5 etc.
– Second digit, i came to understand it as the “evolution”. Oldest model with 1.3 engine would be called C31, more modern would be C32, then C33 etc… For R models the oldest model would confusingly be R80, then R81… I don’t know why that was the case.
I will still try to say the original name we are used to by this point in brackets, because it is still rather confusing naming system.

Now onto the countries where research has yielded more results.
– Algeria
This country wasnt on the list. According to the China Car Forums member “abuchihab”, SMA was present on the algerian market since 2009. I do not have any informations except the fact C32 (Marindo 303/MA) and C52 (Hysoul 305/MA) got sold there. I found quite alot of C32s on a used car website, C52s were rarer.

– Bosnia and Herzegovina:

This country wasnt on the list. They were importing cars since 2007. Models on offer were following: C31 (M203/Marindo 205/AA), C51 (Marindo 303/MA), C52/C81 (Hysoul 305/MA), R80 Sports (Hisoon AB). I even found some brochures.

Company that was importing the cars was called Avtocom BH d.o.o, i think they are still in business, but i am not 100% sure.
I feel like this could be linked to the claimed slovenian exports, could be the same importer. I have found a picture of a C31 with Montenegran licence plates too on Platesmania.

I have found an existing unit from bosnia on sale aswell.

– Chile:

Chile was not on the list. i am not surprised though that the cars got sold here, Chilean companies imported just about anything over the years, even the brands you probably never even heard of. Imported between 2008 and 2010 by the company Fortaleza, it was reported that 624 units were sold. The confirmed models on offer by Fortaleza were C52/C61/C81 (Hysoul 305/MA) and R51/R81 (Hisoon MA).

C61 – now hold up, that is something new:

Yes, according to the logic of export names, this car has a 1.6 liter engine. This engine, codenamed JL481QA, was never sold in China according to my research. It is a modified 1.8 liter engine with shorter stroke (77 mm instead of 85.5 mm), thus resulting in the displacement of 1587cc. Power dropped to 78,7 kw/6000 rpm, and torque went down to 137 nm/4400 rpm.

R80 joined the lineup in 2009, i found one for sale from 2010:

There is a likelyhood that the C31 (M203/Marindo 205/AA) and C51 (Marindo 303/MA) got sold there too. The cars ended up being used as a taxi.

The brand has re-entered the chilean market with the revived Maple brand, and its model 30X. This is the only country I know where the revived Maple brand got exported. It is beyond the scope of this article, but I encourage you to look at Ramón Rivera’s article that is linked in the comments.

– Egypt:

Egypt as a country was on the export list found on the old SMA website. According to mr. Abd-Elfatah, moderator in egyptian Maple facebook group, the imports of Maples started in 2005, by the company Ghabbour auto. First model was the M303 – the basic sedan. Majority of them had a 1.5 liter engine.

Then at some point, the naming completly changed. M303 became Aspire:

With those old front indicators, i am inclined to say that the change happened sometime in 2006 at the latest.

Brief confusion: I seen this car also a few times with a C61 badge. Together with the SMA7161E3 designation – but that belongs to the model with audi front…. Perhaps it had the front end swapped out after an accident?

As reported by a chinese website in 2009, there was also a Primera (Hysoul 305/MA), and Escala (Marindo MB/Haifeng).

The two had mostly the export-only 1.6 engine. I have stumbled upon a 1.5 liter Primera on ocassion. Escala was not a very good seller, from used car ads this did appear the least by far.

There were also model called Romeo. I do not know to which car the Romeo name belonged.

The Haiyue appeared on the Egyptian market aswell, I have found multiple units for sale as seen below. From various sources I heard that the export name of this car was Serene, so I naturally assumed that would be a name for the egyptian market. But no, it seems the rear badging says E51 (E? Why E series, when all the other cars in other countries were perfectly content with C/R series? I have no idea…). Or was the name Romeo after all? I have yet to seen a car with such badge.

Funilly enough, these cars were my first solid proof that the Haiyue got actually released to the public, before i found one for sale in China. Sales stopped in 2011, as the cars in stock got sold off.

– Iran:
Iran was on the list. We only got a short note for this venture, but a very curious one to say at least. In the official history of the brand, it says: “On January 6 2009, Mr. Kiaee, President of RVCO Company, the partner of Maple Car Haishang C81 in Iran’s CKD project, and his delegation visited Shanghai Maple. General Manager Yu Wei received these guests from afar.”
CKD, very interesting, this is the first time i heard that the SMA cars were also assembled outside of the Shanghai plant.

– Libya
Again, no pictures for this one. I found only one note from the official website: on July 3rd, 2006, 2000 units of SMA cars set off for Libya – this made it the biggest single deal in SMA exporting history, at least up to that point. Understandably so, the country was on the official export list.

– Moldova:
Moldova was on the list. Only info I got is a couple of pictures from flickr of this C52 captured by a Kim Løvenskjold, and a bunch more caught on platesmania (the silver “C32” is actually a C52)

– Russia:
SMA cars were imported to Russia between April 2008-2009 by a company named Avto-Planeta. There are many, many pictures on platesmania, it looks that despite the short time on the market, the cars sold reasonably well. It is strange that Russia doesnt appear on the official list.
Models imported: C32/C51 (Marindo 303/MA) and the C52/C61/C81 (Hysoul 305/MA). The importation of C31 is inconclusive, the official website mentioned the model, but it didnt appear in the model selection screen. There are some C31s on russian plates, but they are from Crimea, meaning those cars likely were there before 2014.

– Syria:

Syria was featured on the official list. The imports were conducted by a company called Al Sayer, I reached out to them, but i got no reply (yet). Many thanks to Erik van Ingen Schenau, who has kindly provided these pictures from 2005-2006, the only ones I got. Branding seems slightly confused, brochure has the original chinese name written down, but on some other pictures we can see the export name. There are 4 different cars we can see:
1. Galewind (First Galewind we see abroad!)
2. M203/Marindo 205/AA,
3. Marindo 303/MA
4. Hysoul 305/MA

They have seem to stuck around at least for a while, as I have found two C52 from 2008 for sale on facebook:

It took me a while to find, but the Galewind seemed to be sold under the model name MP. I found one for sale with all sorts of custom badges:

The MP name would be also used by the M203. This is again the first time we see the M203 abroad – note the beefy rear bumper that was unique to that model. Rear spoiler is missing though:

And last but not least, i found a taxi for sale in Tartus – quite rare C62. I only ever seen this name being used once on a cover of a brochure. Seems the Marindo MB/Haifeng models were not a very popular export article.

– Turkey:

I have found a post on the internet, claiming that a turkish company Katren Otomotiv started to import a bunch of electric vehicles in 2012. One of them was a JM Star MBG3000 EV, i suppose they sold a few. I saw a picture of a white one with Istanbul licence plates (cant find it again), Flickr user Adem CELİK has spotted one in red, so I suppose they sold a few:

The logo on the red car is odd, doesnt look either like JM Star logo, nor like Kaiersimai, perhaps it’s an aftermarket one?

– Ukraine:

The Ukraine got Maples in 2005. oddly enough, they were sold by Škoda importer, “Volksmotors”. Eventually there were 23 dealers whom sold these cars, all across Ukraine. Official website only mentioned the regular sedan M303 (with 1.5 engine) and since mid-2006 audi-esque M305 (with 1.8 engine) up for sale. M303 started at 13900 hryvnias, the M305 was starting at 15500 hryvnias.

But we run into something strange – on the cars actually spotted out and about on ukrainian streets, these names did not appear, plus there were actually much more models spotted roaming the streets. I was able to find C31, C51, C52/C81, R80… Imports probably ceased around 2008.

We have came full circle to finish up this article – SMA with a Citroën badge, a callback to its Citroën heritage. Thank you for reading. If you have any extra info or you found an error, I will be glad to hear from you in the comments and edit the article accordingly. I will add the research I have done with racing at a later date, when i feel less burnt out from writing this behemoth.

Sources: autohome.com.cn, auto.sina.com.cn, auto.sohu.com.cn, Erik van Ingen Schenau, Marshall_isl, chinacarforums.com, chinadaily.com.cn, c-sma.com, geely annual reports, flickr.com, www.geely.volksmotors.com, pc.auto.com.cn, xche.org, kongfz.com, olx.ba, es.autoblog.com, ouedkniss.com, facebook, auta5p.eu, hurriyet.com.tr