One of the true beauties of the worldwide web from a car person's perspective is the ability to study the weird and wonderful vehicles the rest of the world gets? Here, our focus is on China, specifically with the brands General Motors has in place there: Cadillac, Buick, Opel, Chevrolet, and Wuling. We'd sure love a Buick Park Avenue, Opel Astra Twin Top, or Buick LaCrosse Eco-Hybrid… 13 weird and wonderful Chinese GM products - Sympatico.ca Autos ok... weird and wonderful aren't exactly two words I'd use. The only cars from that list that look kinda cool would be the Astra convertible and the Excelle XT (hatchback). Also for those that aren't familiar with the Chinese market, Buick is considered pretty damn good there (It's like us looking at someone with a Cadillac). It's up there with Volkswagen (which is also highly regarded).
Yeah, I've seen documentaries on China and apparently the car to have is a black Buick. And yes, Buick is apparently well regarded there. When I went to China (for the first time) ~September 08, I saw quite a few Buick Excelles. IIRC, Hyundai Elantras were real popular as taxis in Beijing but it seems almost all taxis in Shanghai were VW Santanas which are apparently based on a previous gen Passat design.
Small GM cars made in South Korea make their way to Australia under the Holden brand, some of these look just like them 1 Dont know this one here 2 Holden Astra Convertable 3 Ugly, I only saw a car this ugly in USA 4 Holden Commodore. (Australian version is made here in Adelaide and was exported to USA as the G8.) Still sold to UK and Middle East from here. 5 Was sold here as the Daewoo Matiz. Daewoo name is now gone and Holden didn't pick up the Matiz, but they have a small sedan sold as the Holden Viva. 6 Looks like the Holden Cruze, quite popular here. 7 Holden Astra 8 Not sold here, ugly bumper. 9 Not sold here 10 Zafira was sold here but not any more 11 Captiva is sold under holden brand in petrol, diesel, rear and 4 wheel drive versions. 12 nup, not seen this on our roads 13 Epica was replaced by Holden Cruze. Epica was an in line six with front wheel drive. An odd bod.
I think China has a special trade/development deal with VW. VW Santana seems to be the most popular taxi throughout China (including Beijing, as far as I could tell).
We got the Epica as well as the Suzuki version - the Verona. Same inline 6. Slow as heck (tested 0-60 was in the 11 sec range so some 4 cylinder midsize cars were actually faster). Needles to say, it was crap (and Suzuki's poor attempt to tap the midsize market).
I duno ... Their cars may not be perfect ... true ... but one thing you can say about those whacky chinese made cars is that they have REALLY REALLY HUGE crumple zones. And that's good, right? I wonder what their dash board tastes like ... bah ... you'd be hungry again in just 10 minutes. .
