"Auto Market Overview" is the self-owned subsidiary of Auto Market Story, which always pays attention to all automobile companies at home and abroad.
When you think of sports cars, what comes to mind?Is it a fierce horse from the Apennine Peninsula or a Porsche 911 that looks "the same for decades"?Imported sports cars are the dream of countless car enthusiasts, and domestic car companies have never stopped exploring and pursuing speed. From the 86-horsepower sports car at the beginning, to nearly 20 years now, the Chinese have been able to build super sports cars with more than 1,000 horses. Now, let's take a look at this blood-pumping history.
1.Tough start.
In the first decade of the last century, with the spring breeze of reform and opening up blowing all over the land of China, China's automobile industry has also ushered in earth-shaking changes. Many private car companies have taken advantage of the policy and gradually developed and expanded. On the other hand, with the continuous advancement of reform and opening up, a new type of car has gradually entered the sight of the Chinese people - sports cars.
Perhaps many netizens have seen such a **, a high-spirited middle-aged man leaning next to a red sports car, with a very eye-catching Beijing A00001 license plate on the front of the car. This man was Li Xiaohua, China's first Ferrari owner, and his car was the famous Ferrari 348 TS. Since then, imported sports cars have gradually entered the Chinese market and become a big toy for a few wealthy people.
At the beginning of the 21st century, many Chinese car companies have also noticed the sports car market, they are not only aiming to make money, but more or less holding a force in their hearts: foreigners can build sports cars, why can't Chinese build them?As soon as an idea comes out, just do it. There are two Chinese car companies that eat crabs first, both of which are brands that we are very familiar with: Geely and Chery.
Lucky beauty leopard.
Launched: 2004.
In June 2001, at the 9th Shanghai International Auto Show, a bright yellow sports car continued to attract the attention of the audience. It is Geely's first sports car: the Beauty Leopard. This car is designed by an Italian design company, but at a glance it is clear that it should not be a product designed by a big factory like Pininfarina, because it exudes a strong Dongying temperament all over the body, especially the rear of the car, which should be seen at a glance by old car fans, it borrows the design of the famous Japanese sports car: Toyota Supra. Although the taste of imitation in appearance is a bit heavy, it is indeed the first sports car developed and produced by the Chinese themselves.
Toyota supra
And in terms of power, the car is equipped with 13l and 1The 5-liter engine has a maximum power of 86 and 94 horsepower, respectively, and an acceleration time of 12 from 0 to 100 km h8 and 12 seconds, the drivetrain is mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox. Such a power configuration makes it difficult to associate it with a sports car, although Geely later introduced the 1The 8-liter engine has a maximum power of 113 horsepower, but it can only be said to be on a par with the family cars of the same period.
In terms of suspension, the beauty leopard adopts the front and rear MacPherson independent suspension, which has the advantages of being simple and lightweight, small in footprint and low in cost. However, fans and friends should know that the sports car is a model that almost does not use the front and rear MacPherson suspension, because its shortcomings are relatively obvious, due to the lack of lateral support, so its lateral stiffness is small, which will cause the vehicle to roll more when cornering, affecting the overall handling.
Although this car has many unsatisfactory points, it still withstood a lot of pressure and really went on the market in production. The starting price of the lowest spec model is only 9990,000 yuan, which shortened the distance between the people and sports cars at that time. The initial sales of this car were not bad, and even more than 100 units were exported, but unfortunately the good times did not last long, and there were still very few people who could afford to spend 100,000 yuan to buy a sports car, after all, the housing price in Beijing at that time was only a few thousand yuan per square meter. At that time, most people could hardly afford even a regular car, let alone a large two-seater toy with poor practicality, and the market at that time could not support the continued popularity of this sports car.
The interior of the Beauty Leopard is also relatively modest, and the only performance attribute is the metal shift ball head
Due to poor sales, the Beauty Leopard was unfortunately withdrawn from the market after the production of the 2006 model, Geely was still reluctant to give up on this car, and launched the successor Chinese Dragon in 2009, but it is not essentially improved compared to the Beauty Leopard, but it has a more radical appearance, and the power is also 113 horsepower 1 of the 2006 Beauty Leopard8-liter naturally aspirated engine, but at this time there was already a Zhonghua Kubao on the market equipped with 170 horsepower 1Products with 8t engine. For various reasons, the Chinese dragon was discontinued after only one year of production.
Chinese dragon Even today, 20 years later, Geely Beauty Leopard is still a car with mixed reviews, and it is mainly depreciated, and there are self-leading teachers who call it "the originator of domestic copycat cars" and "the black history of Geely Automobile". However, as the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning, Geely dares to be the first person to eat crabs, and to make domestic sports cars from scratch to market and mass production, which is already very admirable. Although the Geely Beauty Leopard has no appearance and no power, it is still the pioneer of China's sports car field and a "not too rich" monument in China's development history.
Chery M14 Launch: Not on the market.
On the other hand, Chery chose to cooperate with the famous Italian design company Pininfarina to develop its first sports car, the M14. In 2001, Chery and Pininfaria began joint development of the body and chassis platform. From the point of view of appearance, the M14 car is completely positively developed, and there is basically no trace of imitation and reference from the whole vehicle, and Pininfarina's designers can indeed be called the big brother in the industry.
The M14 was unveiled at the 2005 Shanghai Motor Show and is equipped with the Chery Power 16cbr、2.0CBR two engines. The gearbox also has two types of manual transmission and CVT for users to choose. But it is very regrettable that the car has never been mass-produced, has been in the development and testing stage, and it is reported that the car has encountered a bottleneck in the hardtop convertible technology. In 2010, the car was once revealed to be on the market, but in 2012, it was revealed that the car was still being tested and was far from being listed.
Regrettably, the car was not mass-produced in the end, but disappeared into the dust and disappeared into the long river of history. We suspect that the reason why the car did not go to market in the end may be due to the high cost of developing components such as the convertible mechanism, and the difficulty of generating profits after mass production. However, Chery, as one of the first companies to expand its territory in the field of sports cars, has also made its own contribution to the development of China's automobiles.
Summary of this chapter. At the beginning of the 21st century, China's sports cars are still in their infancy, difficult to explore the stage, both the appearance and power are not satisfactory, coupled with technical, financial or other reasons, regret is inevitable. We can't be too demanding of Chinese car companies in this period, and the process of crossing the river by feeling the stones is always difficult and cruel. And at that time, private cars were just beginning to become popular, and sports cars were still unattainable toys for the vast majority of consumers. But then again, Chinese auto companies have at least truly completed the feat of stepping out of their comfort zone and challenging themselves, and completed the leap from zero to one in the field of sports cars.
22.Twists and turns to explore.
China Cool Treasure. Launched: 2007.
Although the Geely Beauty Leopard has fallen, more Chinese car companies have taken over the baton and are developing China's sports car business one after another. In the blink of an eye, in 2006, domestic sports cars began to appear on the land of China. At this time, the baton was passed to the hands of China, and China Kubao was launched. In 2006, Zhonghua Kubao was unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show and officially launched on September 26, 2007.
The earliest name of this Chinese sports car was Zhonghua M3, which was later renamed Zhonghua Coupe, and finally changed to Zhonghua Kubao. You may feel a little earthy when you hear this name, but this car can really be regarded as one of the most foreign models among domestic cars at that time. In the area of exterior design, it is logical that China once again invited an old friend of Chinese car companies - Pininfarina.
This time the old friend did not disappoint, giving Kubao a cool GT appearance, the whole car looks smooth and stretched, and the frameless doors and the design of the large slip-back really make people feel "inside". Although this appearance is still a bit naïve compared to a luxury GT like Aston Martin, I personally think that it has been able to compete with the modern cool on the market at that time, and it is a qualitative leap compared to the beauty leopard mentioned above.
Hyundai Coolpad The exterior of this car is not borrowed at all, but the chassis is a combination of the best of all schools. Its chassis comes from Zhonghua Junjie, which can be traced back to Mitsubishi Gelan, and has a good handling foundation. In terms of suspension, the car adopts a front double wishbone rear multi-link structure, which has a significant improvement in handling (friends who are interested in suspension can click here). The chassis and NVH are all solutions given by Porsche experts. All this gives Zhonghua Kubao the handling that it should have as a sports car, and friends who are interested in this car can click here to view the detailed evaluation report.
And power is the biggest highlight of this car, the self-developed 1The 8-liter engine has a maximum power of 170 hp and is mated to a six-speed manual transmission and a four-speed automatic manual transmission. In addition, there is an entry-level version with 136 hp 1An 8-liter naturally aspirated engine is optional. 9.The 0-100 km h acceleration time of 3 seconds is not fast in a sports car, but at least it has entered the "10-second club", which is a bit different from mainstream family cars.
This car of China Kubao is obviously a step up from the beauty leopard in terms of appearance, interior, handling and power, which can be said to be the first decent sports car made by the Chinese, and is a milestone in the history of Chinese automobile development. But the price is still a mountain between the Chinese and the sports car, 1Although the 8T model is very exciting, the ** of nearly 160,000 is still very few people can afford it at that time. Despite all the reluctance, China Cool Treasure still withdrew from the market after only launching the 2007 model.
MG TF Launched: 2007.
MG F Compared with the emergence of the previous domestic sports cars, the birth of MG TF cannot be regarded as a high-rise building. Its predecessor comes from the MG F, which was launched in 1995 after BMW took over MG. This small car looks unassuming, well-behaved and cute, harmless to humans and animals, and most fans may think that it adopts the same front-rear-wheel drive layout as the Mazda MX-5. But don't be fooled by its appearance!In fact, it is a pure-blooded supercar with mid-rear-drive rear-drive!And the protagonist of today's story has also perfectly inherited the mantle of MG F, adopting a mid-rear-wheel drive layout. In January 2002, the MG TF was officially launched, and compared with its predecessor, the car has a slight upgrade in appearance and chassis.
At the time of the launch of MG TF, MG had not yet been acquired by Nanjing Motor. Let's take a look back at the history of MG. In fact, MG was born in the United Kingdom in 1924, and due to various mismanagement in the past 100 years, MG has been living a life of displacement, and was once bought and sold by BMW. Finally, on July 22, 2005, MG was acquired by Nanjing Automobile, and at the same time, MG's engine production part was acquired, and in April 2007, SAIC acquired Nanqi Group, so MG Automobile naturally became a sub-brand of SAIC.
2007 is the era when domestic sports cars have sprung up, and MG, which has been acquired by SAIC, found that the ancestors left them such a big baby model with a mid-rear-drive drive, of course, they want to take it out and make up for it to continue to let it play its residual heat. Nanqi decided to resume production of MG TF and transferred experts from the United Kingdom to debug the production line. At the end of March 2007, the locally-produced MG TF officially rolled off the assembly line, and then the car was also sold back to the Longbridge plant in the United Kingdom in the form of CKD (Imported Assembly of Bulk Parts) for assembly and sales.
This convertible car can only be said to be decent in terms of appearance, not ugly but also not too many highlights, but in terms of chassis power, there are too many highlights. The car is equipped with the improved 18N4S1 type 1 of NanqiThe 8-liter inline-four-cylinder self-aspirated gasoline engine has a maximum power of 136 hp and a maximum torque of 165 Nm. The drivetrain is mated to a 5-speed manual transmission, and the car also features a front double wishbone and rear multi-link independent suspension to further improve handling. Although the power is not abundant, the mid-mounted rear-wheel drive layout makes this small car still very playable.
So far, this is a boutique sports car with a lot of personality, and some people even call it the domestic version of the little Porsche boxster. However, the follow-up in 2008 also launched the CVT continuously variable transmission version is really a little confusing, the maximum power has dropped to 120 horsepower, with the above chassis hardware, how much people have a sense of Master Kong instant noodles with Boston lobster, maybe SAIC MG really can't find a suitable automatic transmission.
MG TF is actually not a Chinese sports car in the strict sense, and Nanqi only made a small upgrade to the treasure left by the ancestors and introduced it to the market. But this car is really worth talking about, its appearance undoubtedly made the then relatively barren Chinese sports car market a little more new vitality, it was basically the only mid-mounted rear-wheel drive sports car that ordinary people with a little spare money in China could get at that time. (Although many buns are also mid-rear-wheel drive, the engine is placed under the driver's seat, which is not the same thing as a sports car placed in front of the rear axle.) Its emergence has also inspired more Chinese car companies to continue to forge ahead on the road of building sports cars.
BYD S8 launched in 2009.
BYD F8
As early as 2006, BYD launched a hardtop convertible sports car, the BYD F8. In 2009, this car was renamed BYD S8 and officially mass-produced. This car seems to be a bit understated compared to the previously mentioned models with strong personalities. But this car is the first hard-top convertible sports car produced by China itself, remember the aforementioned Chery M14, the dream of hard-top convertible finally made BYD come true.
In terms of appearance, the car borrows from the Mercedes-Benz CLK model, and the power adopts 2The 0-liter naturally aspirated engine produces 140 hp and is mated to a 5-speed manual or CVT gearbox. In fact, this sports car should be said to be decent in all aspects, but in the domestic market in 2009, the starting price of 150,000 makes it not very competitive.
At the technical level, it is indeed a great achievement to overcome the complex structure of the electric hard top, the car uses a two-stage folding hard top, and the opening and closing are completed by electronic control and hydraulic power. This car is also BYD's first bold attempt to explore the field of sports cars. Looking at it now, BYD's electric supercar looks up to the U9 that will be launched soon, which also has a credit to the predecessor BYD S8. Looking up at the U9, a supercar, we'll introduce you to it in the next issue.
Summary of this chapter. At this stage, Chinese sports cars have gradually transitioned from a difficult start to the stage of seeking up and down, and each Chinese sports car at this stage has begun to have its own highlights and uniqueness, whether it is the improvement of power parameters, the upgrade of suspension structure or a cooler appearance, we can see that the product power of Chinese sports cars is gradually improving. However, objectively speaking, Chinese sports cars at this stage still have obvious deficiencies in technology or design, or lack market competitiveness in pricing, so these models are only produced for one or two years before being withdrawn from the market. However, the journey of exploration is always full of thorns and challenges, and the bold attempts of these car companies have accumulated a lot of market and technical experience for latecomers, and opened up a feasible path for Chinese sports cars in the future.
Full text summary. In this article, we review the difficult start and tortuous exploration stage in the history of China's sports car development, although it has gone through hardships, but with the continuous efforts of Chinese car companies, China's sports car industry is indeed constantly developing and progressing. It must be admitted that foreigners have decades of more experience and technology accumulation than us in gasoline engines, and it is indeed difficult for some strong people to overtake Britain and catch up with the United States. However, the development of new energy has given Chinese car companies a very rare opportunity to overtake in corners, and soon China's supercar industry has ushered in a period of rapid development, and a large wave of performance beasts is coming!We will continue to take stock of the 20-year development history of Chinese sports cars for you in the next issue, so stay tuned!