This is so damn true. My son knows nothing about cars, so when I saw him playing the game, I would tell him what all the cars looked like and even he saw it. They just take 2 cars and mix them together. Payday 2 also did this.
Beijing started out making Chinese army Jeeps. In the 1980s the got and licensed Wranglers and Cherokee. Then hybrid them into the BJ40. That grill is like Jeep’s seven slots. It’s on the BJ40,BJ80,Bj90
Being a Chinese, I always hated these shameless copying, it just enforces the stereotype that Chinese brands has no innovation or original ideas. On a positive note, these copycat brands would either go bankrupt (Zhongtai and whatever the CEO was from), remains terrible (Land Wind, Beijing Auto, Cherry), or go on to build better cars with original designs (Geeky, Link & Co, Neo, Changan).
It is also a sign of a developing national industry. I, as a brazilian, would not mind if there was national car manufacturers even if they copied the design of other brands. These cars would be cheaper and, with time and investment, the brands would grow and refine their own designs. I shall say: you should be grateful for having national brands.
The worse part about these Chinese copycat is their shameless and confident attitude. They know their government will defend them from copyright battle.
I was recently visiting family in the Caribbean, I saw so many Land winds, Havals, and Ssayngyongs. These cars get imported there and they are very competitive in the smaller markets. I will admit, getting up close to these cars I realized they actually aren’t that bad, still quite crap but I could see how people drive them. Also there is tons of really awesome Chinese companies that I quite like the concepts of.
As a Chinese person, I am ashamed by all of those shitty copy cats, But there are still some good Chinese car brands as well. Love you videos by the way! Keep it up!
FunFact: Hyundai and Chinese brand did collaboration before. Making Santafe Gold edition in china. So they had some contract that chinese gets to sell santafe gold with their brand names. Funny thing is when the contract was over China still kept producing the car. More funny thing is Santafe Gold by Hyundai was like old car going back to early 2000 but chinese keeps on making the same looking car till this day with same design lol
From the sides and rear, yes. I can see the striking resemblance. The headlights look like they were copied from the J120 Prado. Yes, he mentioned Lexus. Lexus just used the 2002 Land Cruiser Prado (GX trim) as a basis for the Lexus GX 470.
Zotye SR9 really sparked my interest. It comes even PHEV, but the most important part is that it only has the 4G63. That makes the 4G63 offcially have every single possible variant of an engine. - SOHC, DOHC, DOHC VVT - Natural aspiration, Turbo - Carburator, Indirect injection, Direct injection - FWD, RWD, AWD drivetrains - FF, FA, MR layouts - Classic, Hybrid drivetrains - Every single EURO emissions standard, including Non-EURO 4G63 is the only *S Tier* engine, imo. That's just impressive.
At one point you asked what the point was in making an almost exact copy, I think they are aimed at the same kind of people who by knock off Rolex watches. Also the front of the X5 copy looks line an old Honda CRV and the back of the Rolls copy looks like a really old Wolsley
Damn!! As a Chinese s ethnicity, I feel ashamed that this happened. Very much so. This bad reputation will take a lot more efforts in the future to correct. Very short sighted thinking.
I lived in China for a bit and can assure you that these copy cats gain traction in the early to mid 2010s as people are still having trouble to differentiate those cars. Most of the cars we seen today is from the late 00s to the mid 10s. But very recently, Chinese manufacture began to sway away from it since Chinese people are beginning to see through this BS and start to look down these cars as cheapskate wannabes. What they do now, they buy up the troubled brands and use foreign designer. So yes, there is less copycats, but now the cars, they look generic as corporate design language takes over.
Since the thoughts were that is was some kind of Lexus front: The Shuanghang CEO has the frontclip of the 3rd gen Toyota Land Cruiser Prado (J120) from 2005
We used to make fun of these cars in Iran (back when our economy was a lot better and 6 out of 10 cars on our streets were mercs and BMWs) and then our economy crashed and all those boycotts happened and now 8 out of 10 cars on our streets are these Chinese copy-cars.
The "Macan" has the BMW allows, the rear lights "dip" is inspired by the Cayenne pre-facelift. The "X5" rear lights is inspired by the first Gen BMW X3. The "G wagon" grill and rear lights are inspired by the Jeep Rangler.
Any artist will tell you that you can learn a lot by copying the masters. As I understand it, that is how these companies start out, then if they make it, they start doing more original designs.
to be fair.. Chinese car makers ( the cloning aside) produce cars with cheap labor, and fairly cheap material cost, considering car makers in Europe or in the States, paying more for material and much more for labor... also they have less high safety standards, thus a car produced for china market only costs less, then a car produce for export, there are cars that are made for export and they are in the $30-$40K range granted most of the times, the features and interior quality rivals $20-$30K more expensive western cars... yes the 95% clone thing should stop...
The back of the Zoyte SR9 kind of looks like a MB GLA more than a Macan. So as long as you copy from two or more models/manufacturers and make it into one car, that’s ok.
One thing I realized about the Porsche Macan lookalike, the Front grille resembles the lines of a 2013 R8 V10 plus if you look closely at the angles. :P It's like they put the face of the R8 on the Porsche. So horrible.
The Chinese clones of western items that I have seen, always share the same scary traits. They make parts out of different materials to the original, made using different (wrong) techniques. For example they stamp and weld, instead of CNC machining or high quality casting. Their thing won't last long and are probably dangerous in some cases.
I honestly think they do it to annoy the bigger car companies lol....like heyyyyy look what we did for fun.. Edit: i was hoping to see a video of you fixing the Chinese copies and making it into the original one 🤣
It is clear that those companies have as much shame, integrity and moral values as their government and the court who "can't really see the similarities" but what interests me is that who actually buys those cars? The "smaller the dick, bigger and more expensive the car" is incredibly accurate in Chinese society, especially the high class so who is actually buying those cars? Or is it the same kind of deal as the people in Europe sticking AMG logos on a C220 CDI?
You know, I may be Chinese but my lord I hate my own race because of how much copy cat shit they come up with. So many replicas and copies of almost near similar products.
Horsepower is always expensive. You can steal a design and cheapen it due to reduced design cost. Getting the same performance at 10x reduction is never possible though. I think performance is more important than just looks. It's like buying any kind of replica....May look the same, but it won't perform or last the same.
I really don't like this copying models from the Chinese companies. It's just ruining the reputation of the originals. I understand that like "we sold out ourselves to Chines", like capitulation...
15:15 well, the reason why is expensive is because of the taxes. besides foreign cars are of better quality and also far more reliable, plus zotye and some other chinese car companies that still copy foreign in car designs, won't be tricking any people into thinking its your own design.