There were fewer copy cars at this year’s Beijing Show, though the badly out-of-focus Lexus RX 350 ripoff on the BYD stand lent credence to one cynic’s suggestion that the company’s name actually means “Borrow Your Designs.” The RX 350 was a popular choice among the knock-off merchants: The cheerful English-speaking chap on the Huanghai Auto stand assured me the crudely finished Landscape V3 prototype occupying center stage (pictured above) was “all ours” and “brand new,” even though from 50-feet away it looked like it had been made by Toyota. Never heard of Huanghai Auto? Neither had I. Apparently it’s in Liaoning Province, “just across the river from North Korea.” So now you know.
The fast-learning domestic Chinese automakers are beginning to understand they need to build cars that look like their own designs, even if they’re starting with somebody else’s cast-off tooling. So here’s this year’s Beijing Show party game: Spot the donor cars.
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