Quite often, we don’t have a good opinion of chinese design. Chinese manufacturers are young, and so are their designers. It shows. A good solution then, is to hire a respected designer for some contractual work. Most likely he will be italian. Pininfarina and Giugiaro have many asian customers these days, but chinese manufaturers can also open a R&D center in Italy, with a focus on design, and this is precisely what Jianghuai Automobile Co. Ltd. (JAC) has done.
JAC is a newcomer to the auto industry, it started making cars barely 3 years ago. But it has been China’s leading bus company for 14 years. Its first cars were uninteresting old Hyundai (built under license), but it came out last year with the very nice A0 below.
The A0 is a very nice looking little car, and it should have a smaller brother sometimes, if this electric hybrid JAC Vision IV concept gets its visa for production. We believe it should. This looks new and successful, it’s a fresh and bright design. There’s customers waiting for it in every big city of Europe. Best of all, it’s an hybrid, so guess it’s clean, but we don’t have any details about its drivetrain yet. We’ll find out at the Beijing motorshow this week-end. Still, let’s write it plainly, we’re impressed: a good design with hybrid technology makes a winning combination in our eyes.
I am a fan of old days car where you could tell the difference between individual vehicles of all make and model. The exotic things about the old car were the curves and round shape they got that was a unique selling point as curves were the killer touch on the car. Nowaday, all new modern car you, they all are like spaceship, boxed shape and all vehicles of different make and model are very similar and it doesn’t really matter if you drove a Ford top of the range model Mondeo compare to pricey BMW 5 series where as in the old day it was a big deal to drive the cheapest BMW model compare to the most expensive Ford Granada. I lost interest in car since then. But however, since I got onto this website, I fell love in car once again due to the fact I haven’t seen any car like this the electric hybrid JAC Vision IV concept compare to other latest modern vehicles, this concept may be small but look big and muscular thanks to the unique design with lots of round and curves especially the shape of the front light which is very eye catching. Plus it is green and electric which is very good for the environment. Hoping to drive one of those should be out on production line!! Huge thumbs up from me! Can’t wait!
Yes, design really matters. The Renault Twingo by exemple, was innovative in its first generation, but got boring with the second one. The chinese are showing they can do better, maybe they will lead the way.