After showing off a previous gen Saab 9-5 with reworked looks last year, Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co (BAIC) has announced that it will launch its first own-brand sedan before the end of this year. A prototype was completed in December last year and the car will go on sale either in late 2011 or early 2012.
Codenamed C70C, the upcoming sedan is based on the underpinnings of the old Saab 9-5 that Beijing Automotive purchased from GM in 2009. Then, Beijing Auto paid $200 million for the assets, which also included some technology from the current Saab 9-3. Not sure if the end product will look like the C71 concept, which had a Camry style nose stuck on the Saab’s angular body.
In China, Beijing Auto is the joint venture partner of Hyundai and Daimler AG. It also assembles Chryslers and makes SUVs and 4WDs based on old Toyota and Jeep designs. The company’s group sales totaled 1.4 million vehicles in 2010, making it the fifth largest automaker in China.
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Wow!! Impressive, The Japanese beware, the enemies are closer than they appear.
The Korean should be the one to beware, as the Chinese Car can beat them flat on low pricing.
Once Hyuindai Kia lost the chunch from China market their market volume will surfer.
Looks like our honda accord. When I have my first glance, I tot honda accord has new released. After looking at the title then ….
Nah! I saw our current Camry but with style!
Hyundai Kia have to beware, instead of trying to catch up with Japanese they have the Chinese breathing behind their neck.
by looking at both cars…the white one has more aerodynamic curve and nice bumper…urgh my nose bleeding…
By looking at the car also can nose bleeding??? Ham sap lou ???
aiyoh need to expain?…the joke spoiler is both cars is just to look at but the nose bleeding come from the sexy girl in white…its easier to catch should you familiar with anime comic and not a female…if u are a man i am deeply sorry if offended you…
Now I can confirm you really is a Ham sup lou.
its just a joke bro…doesnt meant any harm by it…just being a normal guy who like to see beautiful chick…peace bro…end…
when i look at blonde model, i can see that their legs are …. i dono what to say, like KFC ‘sedap menjilat jari’
toyota camry front grill
the white “car” looks very nice!
yea…would very much like to ride it : )
the girl(white attire) outshine the cars
If the price is low, somewhere around Chery/local car prices, I’ll definitely give it a try…
depends… but for it to come here, there must first be a continuity plan for the local importer to ahve confidence and the local impoerter also needs deep pockets to set up a service network. otherwise, it may not work as intended here.
if the conditions are right and price too, yup, i’ll consider it too. the saab 9-5 which the baic c71 is based on is a pretty decent car too. hopefully they also have saab’s 2.0L and 2.3L turbo engines.
imho saab failed in malaysia because of 2 key factors.
1) saab was unwilling to provide skd.
2) importer was unwilling to invest in strenghtening the service and sales network. notice, i mentioned service first and to get the public’s confidence in the brand, they had to get the support of current saab owners first.
sorry for digressing but if baic wanted to sell their cars here, best not to make the same mistake in thinking cheap cars will sell. without a proper network and pricing, it just won’t happen.
Seriously a good job done..I feel it’s much better than the original Saab. If sold here I wanna i too :D
the worry with baic is this. after the pseudo 9-5 what else? we know they have some rights to the current 9-3 as well which they may use to churn out their own model. but after that what is the enxt step? no more continuity?
imho, they should strike a deal with saab to take over their older models (when there are older models) and continue selling saab based cars. this way, everybody wins. saab will earn from platform royalties and the chinese get european platforms which will possibly result is decent handling cars with decent quality.
actually, this reworked saab looks quite good. front looks like a cylon helmet or even boba fett’s helmet.
baic also has a saab 9-3 version called baic c60.