About the History of Cars in China
In the 2000s, Geely was concept car crazy. On most auto shows, the brand would launch up to ten (10) concept cars, packed into the booth, next to the production cars. One of the most interesting cars from Geely’s golden concept era was the Geely Meirenbao II (美人豹II), a concept for a successor of the Meirenbao sports car.
Continue reading “China Concept Cars: The 2007 Geely Meirenbao II”
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 car 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.
Continue reading “Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot: Shanghai Maple”
Today in China Concept Cars the 2008 Geely GT, the 2009 Geely GT. and the 2010 Geely Emgrand GT Tiger. These were a line of interesting concept cars with a traditional sports car shape. When the GT came out nobody expected production, but when the Emgrand Tiger GT debuted two years later we weren’t so sure anymore. It looked much closer to production and Geely, after all, had given up the Meirenbao coupe in 2003.
Continue reading “China Concept Cars: The 2008 Geely GT And Its Successors”
Today in China Concept Cars the Geely Chengbao. It was unveiled on the 2005 Shanghai Auto Show and it was inspired by classic sportscars. The name ‘Chengbao’ means castle in Chinese. Continue reading “China Concept Cars: Geely Chengbao”
Welcome at a special New Year’s Eve edition of China Concept Cars. And we have a very special car. This black beauty is the Geely Fengyin, a concept car that debuted at the 2006 Beijing Auto Show.
Geely wants a part of Daimler. After a public rejection in November the Chinese company is now buying Daimler stock on the open market. The Germans better watch out because Geely founder Li Shufu wants Daimler really bad, especially the Mercedes-Benz brand.
How bad is really bad? Very bad. As my colleague Erik explained earlier on in his brilliant article about Geely’s early history it has always been Li’s dream to build a “Chinese Benz”. Geely’s very first car was in fact a Mercedes-Benz lookalike. And we now have more information about this car.
Continue reading “The First Geely Was A Fake Mercedes-Benz E-Class Based On A Real Audi 100”
In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s Geely manufactured two mini pickup trucks and one mini-mini van. All were based on the Geely Haoqing hatchback which in turn was based on the Tianjin Xiali hatchback which in another turn was based on the Daihatsu Charade.
Continue reading “A Daihatsu Charade But Different: The Geely Mini Pickup Trucks”