#carnewschina

Some thirty years later, China will finally get a new Santana. Here it is, brought to you by our friends at Carnewschina. In case it looks familiar, Carnewschina tells us that the new Santana is basically the new Jetta. The current models, holdovers from the stone age, finally can go to the junkyard of history.

Tycho of Beijing’s Carnewschina is onto a rapidly trending phenomenon among the big boys of China: Heavy trucks with convertible tops. It appears to be an aftermarket mod that is not always strictly voluntary: Trucks sometimes roll. Due to the amazing build quality of Chinese trucks and the help of a few hundred migrant workers, a rolled truck quickly is back on its many wheels. With parts essential for a repair safely secured, the chop-top truck is back on its merry way.

Remember the DIY Lamborghini? In a garage somewhere in the less picturesque parts of Beijing, a man built a Lamborghini Diablo replica, fiberglass on hand-welded frame. No industrious Chinese will allow something like that to be forgotten as a one-off lunatic hobby project. Half a year later …

Forget Mao suits: “Chinese youngsters know Justin Bieber, hamburgers and Middle East warfare,” reports the culturally clued-in Carnewschina. “They also know this thing called ‘Bikini Car Wash’, many Chinese websites are full with big-breasted American babes bikini washing big engined American cars.”

A car wash in Shanghai made it reality. Except, well, the babes are Chinese.

Tycho de Feyter, who blogs about Chinese cars in Carnewschina.com, is very much concerned about the well-being of his Chinese compatriots. So much, that he tracks the overlo9ading of vehicles. This “slightly overloaded truck” was seen on China’s tropical island province Hainan. The truck carries big sacks of styrofoam to a recycling facility. Not much weight, but the truck could easily be blown away.

Members of the Chinese car industry are busy hiring foreign engineers and designers. That trend apparently has not reached China’s Shaanxi Province yet. The province is home to state-owned conglomerate Shaanxi Victory. It’s automotive4 division made unremarkable trucks and vans. Very few knew of this venture. Now, Shaanxi is famous all the way to Detroit. The company copied the Cadillac Escalade as the master design for its new S102.

From the Only In China blotter: A customer who did not receive the service he expected for his Cayenne used sex to drive home his point in a photogenic way. A Chinese man threw body-painted girls into the battle with his Porsche dealership. Do not click if arty camel toes offend you.

I came across this vehicle in a parking lot in Beijing. It is a Ford Tempo GL. The Tempo was made in the US from 1984 until 1994, the white car in the parking lot was a second generation Tempo, which would put it in the 1988 the 1994 timeframe. How did it get to China? Ford never officially exported the Tempo to China. It is not the first Tempo I had seen in Beijing, I have seen many over the years. One could be a diplomat’s car, two also, but ten? There had to more to this Tempo-invasion of China, and there is…

Man on a mission: Tycho at the Beijing Auto Show

Yesterday, we reported about Carbuzz purloining content from Carnewschina, and that it is continuing to do so despite vows of repentance. This morning, Carnewschina proprietor Tycho de Feyter opened his laptop in Beijing in order to visit vengeance on the presumptive “leader in car news and industry information.” He keyed in the Carbuzz URL and looked at an empty screen.

“Carbuzz.com is completely down since this morning (Chinese time),” de Feyter telegraphed from Beijing. “Maybe the owners got word of the mess? I hope they stay down, but sadly I can’t do my other articles on these bastards anymore…”

It turns out that Tycho was mistaken. Instead of taking the site down, Carbuzz erected a firewall that keeps out China.

Popular wisdom says that China is a bunch of thieves with utter disregard for intellectual property. Any good, or even half good idea gets immediately stolen in China. In a man bites dog twist on the story, an American website is being accused of serial thievery of made-in-China intellectual property. According to Beijing-based Carnewschina, the Rockville, MD, site Carbuzz.com “systematically steals my content for their China-tag. CarBuzz.com steals my pictures, my information, but does not link back to me.”

Carnewschina spotted this Panther with a – shall we say – unique paint scheme in Shanghai. Black was not enough for this Town Car. Gold was not enough for this Town Car. It needed to be orange-gold on black. Use eye protection, and don’t stare at the picture for too long.

The previous BYD F3 was known as a more than blatant copy of the Toyota Corolla. Many buyers pay a small extra fee to have (fake) Toyota badges affixed, making the F3 nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. The next generation BYD F3 wants to be known for groundbreaking innovation: The car will be remote controlled.

In the alleged police state China, speeders are not hunted down by testosterone-driven cops. Hey get fined through the mail. A system the Chinese have copied from Europe. Some Chinese have taken to using a little camouflage.

After a rash of crashes involving pricey supercars in China, a bus company in Jinghua, China, is taking action. It teaches its bus drivers:

a.) How to spot a super car

b.) How much that super car costs.

Not in order to raise brand awareness amongst its bus drivers.

China has become famous for its golden and pink cars. Now, there is some kind of a backlash. Or maybe word of Jack Baruth’s lime green Audi S5 has reached China? Can’t possibly drive an Audi S5 in gold, pink, or lime green in China after Jack’s frog-colored Audi was flogged on eBay. Even China has some standards. Instead of Audis in garish colors, there now are black and white Audis. “So what?” you say. I said black and white Audis.