BMW Mini’s former chief designer Gert Hildebrand and Volkswagen’s former North America vice chief Volker Steinwascher enjoyed the adolations of the adoring masses when they unveiled their new Qoros brand at the Shanghai Auto Show.

The new brand is  a joint venture between China’s Chery and Israel’s Israel Corp..

The  company plans to start production with the Qoros 3 sedan at an initial capacity of 150,000 units.

The Chinese-Israeli co-production Qoros has not sold a single car yet, but it already finds itself in the legal hot seat. Via a temporary injunction of a court in Hamburg, Germany, Audi precluded Qoros from using – the letter Q.

Qoros 3 Sedan

„The letter Q is a protected part of our brand portfolio,“ Audi is quoted in Der Kfz-Betrieb. „If another car maker uses the letter Q for a name plate, then this affects us, of course.”

This, also of course, should trigger alarm bells at Nissan’s Infiniti. The luxury marque decided to Q-up all its cars behind the letter Q. However, Infiniti told Kfz-Betrieb that there are no complaints pending – yet . Or maybe, Audi does not want to get legally entangled with Nissan, but hopes that a Chinese manufacturer is automatically guilty of infringement. However, our legal researcher Chocolatedeath has found evidence of a prior settlement that shows Infiniti as the infringed party.

Audi Q7

German media report that the legal bluster is not about branded letters, but meant to “keep Qoros down,” as Die Welt writes.  “Is Audi scared of Chinese Qoros?” asks Focus.

Qoros  dropped the Q and calls its new car the  “Qoros 3 Sedan.”  Which could ring alarm bells at BMW …. But then, if I’d be Audi, I would be careful. The best-known Qs in China are the two Qs of the Chery QQ. Chery owns half of Qoros. Audi has a lot to lose in China …

Qoros 3 Sedan

At the Geneva auto show, the long awaited Chinese attack on the embattled European auto market will finally get started in earnest – with the help of German and Austrian engineers, and money from Israel. Qoros is a joint venture partnership between China’s Chery and the Israel Corporation. Qoros wants to be to Chery what Lexus is to Toyota and Acura to Honda. It also wants to be the key that unlocks foreign volume markets.

The names on the doors of the executive suite at Qoros sound like a who’s who of European automotive management: A former Executive Vice President of Volkswagen of America, Volker Steinwascher, is Vice Chairman. Gert Hilderbrand. before Chief Designer of MINI at BMW, is head of design. A former Chief Engineer of BMW, Klaus Schmidt, is in charge of engineering. Peter Matkin, formerly Chief Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, is in charge of the vehicle program.

Qoros 3 Sedan

The cars look a bit more conservative that the cow designs Hildebrandt showed two years ago.

First will be the Qoros 3 Sedan,due to be launched in China in the second half of 2013, with first European sales following later in the year. Launches of further Qoros models are promised at six month intervals.

Qoros 3 Estate Concept

“The car will attack the 6,000 euro more expensive VW Jetta,” reports Germany’s BILD Zeitung. The paper entertains its readers with the Landwind crashs from 2005, but also reports that the engines come from AVL in Austria, the engineering is from Magna Steyr, “and many parts come from Germany.”

Speaking of safety, Qoros says it “aims to achieve top scores on both European and Chinese crash tests for all its models.”

Qoros 3 Cross Hybrid Concept

Chery is China’s largest independent automaker. In a stagnant Chinese market, independents are feeling the pinch by joint ventures between large multinationals and state-owned Chinese companies. Independents seek their salvation in exports, but, as we reported from the Global Automotive Forum in Chengdu, “exports usually come from backwards companies,” as Donfeng’s chairman Zhu referred to China’s second and third tier car companies. Chery wants to break that mold, exporting cars one can be proud of. To sell and to buy.

China might be going on a deadly brand binge as Bertel prognosticated. Here is a new brand that at least is worth a look: Qoros. It is a joint venture between Chery Automotive and Quantum LLC from Israel. The joint venture had been approved way back in 2007, but things slowed down soon after that – in 2008. Now they are back, with a very first concept car that looks – well, it looks like a cow.

Qoros wants to make high-quality cars to compete with the likes of Acura, Luxus, Infiniti, Volvo, and ultimately the German Three. Cars will be made for China and for export to Europe. No clear plans yet for export to the US or other markets.

The factory is based in the great city of Changshu in Jiangsu province. The R&D Center is in Shanghai, perhaps not a single well-paid designer would ever go to a place called Changshu. Quantum and Chery have to far invested 3.40 billion yuan, or 534 million US dollar. Engines will be newly designed by the Austrian company AVL and made in China by Chery.

An ambitious plan it is. But we like ambitious plans. Furthermore, Qoros managed to hire some hot shots.

1. as vice president: Volker Steinwascher, former Executive Vice President for Volkswagen North America (center on pic).

2. as chief designer: Gert Hildebrand, designer of the original new-Mini. Left.

3. as President and CEO: Guo Qian from Chery. You guessed it.

The cars: the weird looking cow car previews a compact sedan that has to hit the market in 2013. Next up is a compact hatchback, followed by an SUV, and followed again by some ‘EV products’. We will shall wait and see.

Dutchman Tycho de Feyter runs Carnewschina, a blog about cars in China, from Beijing, China. He also collects die-cast models of Chinese cars.