SAIC launching new brand without Rover name
Since both Plan A and B have failed, Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp. has decided to move on to Plan C, which means taking the intellectual property rights to the Rover 25 and 75 models it acquired last year and selling the vehicles under a new brand name. Today that name was announced, and when the new 750E "Rong Wei" (Chinese for "glorious power") is unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show in November it will be called the Roewe 750E. Hmm... kind of sounds like Roewe-ver, no?[Source: Forbes]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
spencermfi 7:44PM (10/12/2006)
Is the obvious pun being ignored for some reason??
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.josh. 7:52PM (10/12/2006)
am i the only one who read it as "wrong way" the first time i glanced at it?
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Mathieu 7:55PM (10/12/2006)
It's actually how Chinese people would pronounce Rover anyway.
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felonious monk 7:56PM (10/12/2006)
I'm sorry... a car named WRONG WAY is not going to sell in the US. With as many US educated individuals in the Chinese pool, you'd think they'd at least tap one of them.
Good luck.
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a reason 8:08PM (10/12/2006)
way more funny than the Chevy "No Go" Nova
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Jamie 8:13PM (10/12/2006)
5. way more funny than the Chevy "No Go" Nova
Posted at 8:07PM on Oct 12th 2006 by a reason 0 stars
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That's an urban myth. No va doesn't mean "doesn't go" in Spanish.
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Nick 8:30PM (10/12/2006)
750E Rong Wei sounds pretty fancy. Will it come with a navigation system?
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mr 8:57PM (10/12/2006)
"That's an urban myth. No va doesn't mean "doesn't go" in Spanish."
"No va" means "doesn't go" in Spanish.
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offroadwarrior03 9:11PM (10/12/2006)
i also thought it was pronounced wrong way at first.
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Rock 9:15PM (10/12/2006)
Noh Wei!
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carbuzzard 9:18PM (10/12/2006)
Since Ford just exercised an option to buy the Rover name, wouldn't Ford also be as leery about allowing a knock-off of its property, just as GM didn't want Cherys to be sold in the U.S.?
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Ben 9:23PM (10/12/2006)
No va, literally translated, means "doesn't go" in spanish. However it is horrible grammar and not a phrase someone would use about a car. Also, nova is not the same as "no va", one is one word, one is two. And they're pronounced differently.
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
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Ray 9:28PM (10/12/2006)
Ben: Probably just me, but I think you should loosen your necktie just a little. You might feel a whole lot more comfortable. I'm just sayin...
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Ben 9:45PM (10/12/2006)
I don't even know how to tie a tie. And I don't see your point. I'm surprised you even took the time to post that.
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Kunikos 1:04AM (1/09/2008)
One Comic Book Guy has to upstage another; it's compulsory.
BOB 10:05PM (10/12/2006)
IF YOU WANNA KEEP GOING WITH RONG WEI -- actually, WRONG WAY might be pronounced Long Way. In Korean pidgen English, Rover would be Low-vera, so if you went South from Koreatown in LA and put hydraulics on the vehicle, it would be a Low-vera-lyda.
(No disrespect-- accents are amusing, but anyone who can learn any English, coming off completely non-similar Asian languages, gets credit from me.)
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Sutibu 10:35PM (10/12/2006)
Two points:
"Rong Wei" is the Pinyin transliteration of the Chinese characters; the "o" is a long one, pronounced as in "roam". The article states that in English-speaking countries (that does include the US, right? :-)), the company will use "Roewe".
The other thing is that the first Chinese character in the logo bitmap is the word for "use". "Rong Wei" is how the last two characters are pronounced.
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rong wei executive person man 12:45AM (10/13/2006)
ai noh hao tu naim cah camponi.
ai noh ahmericans wil laik rong wei!
dat hao wi duraibu hia in China on haiwei!
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Greg A. 1:26AM (10/13/2006)
If I recall correctly, by using the intellectual property rights to the Rover 25 and 75 models, SAIC will build essentially the now-relatively-ancient models that Rover was making when it went ti— I mean, belly up. Since those models weren't designed to pass the U.S. crash tests in effect at that time, much less the ones that will be in effect when these cars finally start rolling off the assembly line, I can't possibly imagine that they'll be sold in the U.S. Hell, I'll be surprised if they're sold outside of Asia or in Japan or Korea.
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Cars 2:19AM (10/13/2006)
I think It's not a goos step taken by SAIC.
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