Has anyone seen these in the flesh yet?

I thought the Dacia Dusters were going to be the Starting point for Robust & Bargains from New.

Now the Email adverts are arriving from my local 'Subaru, MG dealership, for the,

new 'Steed' from Great Wall.

http://www.greatwallmotor.co.uk

a Double Cab Pickup starting @ £13,998

george

EDIT, Doh, sorry,

i missed seeing the OTR price to Private buyers, £16,744.60 & £19,144.60

Edited 9 August, 201213 yr by sk4gw

have spotted a couple around Edinburgh, although judging by the cleanliness I suspect they are demonstrators. Also had a good poke at one at the Royal Highland Show and it looked robust and reasonably well screwed together.

If Hyundia were the "new Skoda" then perhaps the Chinese will be next with reliable bargain basement motors.

Hyundia the new skoda???? But i thought they made reliable good looking well built cars......

hmm, not sure whether you are criticising Skoda of Hyundai there??

Point I am trying to make is that 10 years ago or so Skoda started to produce good reliable cars at a bargain basement price. They have moved on - cars have gone up market a bit and they are not as good value as they were.

In the last few year Hyundai and Kia have both taken on the mantle of good cheap cars (IMHO) but they too are now drifting up in price.

Kia has gone from budget goodness to mainstream rival. New Kia Cee'd with a similar spec to my mk1 2007 is 18k!!

Great Wall and Ssangyong and even to a degree the New MG brand are the budget brands of today...once they get on their feet!

The Chinese will also throw money at the product to get it to sell. To quote from a dealer presentation given in 2010:

•Since 1990 GWM has become one of China’s major automotive manufacturers. Capacity will reach 800,000 units in 2010, with 22,000 employees, selling TODAY in 120 markets

Toyota, not Koreans benchmarked – including adoption of T.Q.S

The importers are IM group, not that you've heard of them, but they are a very large and successful British international company, that import Subaru, Daihatsu and Isuzu, they have been working specifically with Great Wall since 2005.

The Chinese and the importers will do whatever it takes to become successful in this country.

To add, that IM is based in the midlands and the cars registered by them will have Birmingham registration numbers, which begin with a B.

Don't appear to be listed yet as a manufacturer in ENCAP database and the models aren't listed at all.

Origami car ?

Nick

For a while Chinese cars will depreciate like yesterday's carry out and you'd be mad to buy them new even if they do turn out to be solid cars. Look how long it's taken Kia et al to gain a reasonable reputation.

I think Skoda has gone too far now in pushing up prices. What's the point in having a semi permanent 20% off it just makes the cars look over priced and puts off people who don't look past the RRP. Reminds me of the Officer's Club shop with the 70% off sale that was on for about 20yrs until they made it illegal to advertise like that (except it's on again now that I've looked).

Edited 14 August, 201213 yr by Aspman