After Ford-Rover Clause, SAIC says "Screw It"

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Tornado

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Roewe = Rover (the ghost never dies)
Roewe.jpg
Left: Roewe; Right: Rover

After failing to purchase the Rover brand name from BMW (as Ford exercised the clause in their contract to buy the Rover brand in order to protect Land Rover), Chinese car maker SAIC decided to develop its own brand. Yesterday, it made the announcement in China. The brand is called "Roewe", horribly close to Rover and give us an impression of intellectual property privacy like many fake Chinese products.

However, SAIC did not hide the fact that it owns the intellectual property of Rover 75, if not the brand name. In its website (www.roewe.com.cn) it said "Although it is not a traditional British marque, its Rover-originated intellectual property DNA let it actually succeed the traditional features of British marques - noble, elegant, good taste, timeless... such qualities to become a classic."

The Rover 75 replica, or "Roewe Grand Prestige", will be unveiled on 24 October. It will be positioned as a middle-upper class vehicle in the Chinese market. However, we did not hear any firm plans for export now.
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Well, it is rather unsurprising to say the least. It is also quite comical that now there will of copies of copies of 15-year-old Hondas. I do wonder what will happen to the old Rover factories and SAIC's plans for building cars in America.
 
Well, why not? They sold the 1990 or so Honda EF (I so hate those chassis codes, I always get them buggered up) until 2001 here in Asia as a sub-Civic model.

And Mexico still gets the 1992 Sentra.

Not really all that compared with modern cars, but it's still good in terms of ride and handling.

Only drawback is that to keep this Rover competitive in terms of chassis rigidity, NVH and ride, they'll probably have to reinforce it like no one's business... making it ungodly heavy.

And if it's from China, it'll be cheap.
 
The Rover 75 isn't that bad a car, as long as you are looking for a fairly affordable and comfotable ride. My neighbour has one and it is comfortable and also lets him drive like a lunatic.

The 25 and 45 however....
 
niky
And if it's from China, it'll be cheap.
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I doubt SAIC will bring anything to North America. They are sitting pretty comfortably in their nest. Then again, I might be wrong... I have been striking out lately... :guilty:
 
Who doesn't love communist cars?

This will get uproar from the radical republicans in the US.
 
Mega Update!
Autozine.org
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Roewe 750 = Rover 75
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Roewe_750.jpg
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Roewe_750_fr.jpg
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SAIC has unveiled the Roewe 750 in its Chinese web site (www.roewe.com.cn). Unfortunately most of you won't understand, so let me translate. The car retains almost all details of Rover 75 in its final form, including the Audi-inspired single-frame grille, but the wheelbase has been stretched by about 100mm to 2849mm (though shorter than the 2950mm of Rover 75 Vanden Plas / Limousine). At launch, the only engine offered is the 2.5-liter KV6, with Siemens engine management system to comply with Euro IV emission and produce 184 horsepower. It mates with an Aisin 5-speed automatic transmission to do 0-100km/h in a leisure 10.2 seconds. Suspensions continues to be struts up front and BMW's Z-axle at the rear.[/SIZE]
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I must say it looks completely generic. And the stolen Audi grill is a nice touch...What the hell am I saying!? It looks horrible. The 75 looked worlds better.
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Toronado
Mega Update![SIZE=-1]
I must say it looks completely generic. And the stolen Audi grill is a nice touch...What the hell am I saying!? It looks horrible. The 75 looked worlds better.
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Haha, it looks like the Audi A4 and a Chrysler 300C had sex and this bastard child is the outcome.
 
Toronado
Mega Update![SIZE=-1]
I must say it looks completely generic. And the stolen Audi grill is a nice touch...What the hell am I saying!? It looks horrible. The 75 looked worlds better.
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I don't think it's flat out awful, but there are serious problems with it. The two major ones are that it's a mish-mash of stolen ideas (not just hints, but entire stolen sections, like the Audi front end), and that the car is no not like the Rover 75. That car, while I never saw it in action outside of "V for Vendetta", was really quite nice. A loss for England, I'm sure.
 
Looks quite nice. Not happy about them stealing the audi front end but who cares.

Why did they copy audi? Because audi is easily the number 1 premium car manufacturer in china :D
 

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