This is not a copy, they bought the rights to it. Late last year, Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp (BAIC), China’s fifth-largest automaker paid $200 million to General Motors for three vehicle platforms and two engine technologies from Saab. This deal, which was done before the Swedish brand temporarily died and got revived, included the old 9-5 design, and BAIC’s BAW brand has a reworked version of that car ready for the Beijing Motor Show.
Called the C71 concept, BAW grafted on a new face to the Saab’s angular, distinctly three-box saloon shape. The front end, which has a pre-facelift Camry style “one-piece nose”, hi-tech looking headlamps and sculpted bumpers, looks almost too modern for the rest of the body. It looks a little disjointed to these eyes, what do you think?
But before we throw arrows at the Chinese for murdering a good design, let’s remember that the old 9-5 in its final iteration wasn’t the best looking car in town either; it had chrome surrounds for the headlights! Don’t remember? We have one waiting for you after the jump!
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the old design is waaaayy better than the C71, IMHO.
well the roof angles are all wrong, thats definitely part of the issue
Agree, it looks shit and outdated.
I hate this design, each time i see this picture, makes me feel older and depressed. Crappy!
COPYCAT!! *by the right way…haha..
Saab poor in body-shape design is a killing point (engineering is ok). no matter how u face-lifeted it, it still look out of trend.
New new 9-5 very sexy thou (the one that nearly got axed coz of bankruptcy), not this 1.
Finally this has nothing to do with copyrights….
China Auto car makers will have to follow BAIC…instead of illegally copying….
As a SAAB fan I see this as a face lifted 9-5. That’s a shame.
I’d have thought BAIC could have done a bit more work on the profile to move away from looking like a copy. Considering the improvement on the front you’d like to think it was possible. If the old 9-5 didn’t appeal to you then the C71 won’t either. This car does have have it’s good points though. For those who can’t afford a new SAAB and are considering a used 9-5 they could look at a new C71 instead and being a SAAB means it has a good safety standard unlike the majority of other chinese brands.
inspector sahab!
WooDz,
Good points. But i’m not sure about the manufacturing integrity for the C71. No doubt they have bought the tooling and design rights for the old 9-5 but the materials used could be a question mark. Actually, I’m ok with the looks. Unfortunately there are no rear pictures or interior shots.
It’d look better if they had put in more conservative looking headlamps.
China design is getting better I must say. They can actually design, wonder why too much copycat before.
nmh,
they take time to evolve from copycats to being real designers. now that they are buying off designs officially, there is a high possibility that their designs will only improve further in the next few years.
No….their design already improve