The relationship between Malcolm Bricklin's Visionary Vehicles and Chinese automaker Chery seems to be changing, Autoweek reports. According to The Wall Street Journal, Bricklin wasn't satisfied with Chery's safety and quality control and will instead design his own cars. The WSJ story says Visionary Vehicles plans to hire Western designers whose creations would be built by a Chinese company to be named later.
Autoblog spoke via email to a Visionary Vehicles spokesperson Wednesday night who said Bricklin has met with 12 Chinese manufacturers and hopes to narrow his list to three early next year. One of those should be Chery. The spokesperson said those three will produce Visionary Vehicles cars in China. Autoweek says their sources suggest The First Automobile Works Group, Shanghai Automotive Industry and Geely are also in the running.
The fate of the 25 or so who signed up to sell Chery autos in the U.S. is unknown.
[Sources: Autoweek; The Wall Street Journal via Car and Driver]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
lawstdent @ Nov 23rd 2006 6:40PM
by the time the Chinese enter the US market light diesels and high mileage clean passenger diesel cars will start to take over. The Chinese will be behind the rest of the big auto makers.
chui @ Nov 23rd 2006 9:42PM
chery and brinlin dont mix..rid of him
Spule4 @ Nov 23rd 2006 10:20PM
OK, AutoWeek says the deal is off due to Cherry working with other car makers in the West and the C/D article says it is due to quality issues? Two different stories here folks, to me it sounds like Malcolm has no real business plan and a grab at straws. I guess the plans for ZMW from five years ago are gone too, he never finished that, but then, who in the US wants a 30+ year old Fiat design from a war zone? Probably a few less than will go for a 15+ year old Korean or Rover design from China.
Howard Kerr @ Nov 23rd 2006 10:44PM
What else should be expected from the guy who brought the first Subarus...the little egg-shaped 360 cc air cooled twin model...and before that, the Bricklin SV-1 to the auto buyers of the U.S.? Wasn't Mr. Bricklin also involved with the importation of Yugos to this country? Guy's battin' 1000.
Mark @ Nov 24th 2006 10:46AM
Malcolm Bricklin's business model is more likely to be rejected by any of the Chinese vehicle manufactural companies. Accordingly, almost all of the Chinese car manufactural plants are operating at full capacity or due for technological upgrade for their domestic brand maketing effort within China. Unless they have excess capacities, Chinese companies are going to use their plants, which cost hundreds of millions or even billion to build or upgrade, to make Malcolm's personal brand. There is one way the Chinese companies would accept the deal is to create a new joint venture that require billion of US$ to build new facilities and plants just for Malcolm's toys. That means Malcolm needs to put up another huge amount of capital to get his business plan get off the ground. And Malcolm have problem rasing the required fund just ot set up marketing and distributions in US, how much more if he is required to raise another huge sum just for palnt and facilities?
mark @ Nov 24th 2006 11:07AM
Malcolm doesn't have any deal with Chinese Car Manufactural companies, and is not feasible to nail down any deal in the future unless if Malcolm could put down another huge sum of capital to build an entire new palnts and factory dedicate for Malcolm 's toys . Almost all of the Chinese domestic Car manufactural plants are either operating at full capacity or due for technological upgrade that could cost hundred of millions of dollars. Given this scenrio, I don't think any of the Chinese car company would be willing to use their costly facilities to build Malcolm's toys under Malcolm ' brand. Unless, just like what I say earlier, it would be feasible if Malcolm put down capitals for plants. Or it would be deal if Malcolm is willing to use the Chinese'own brand.
iQuack @ Nov 24th 2006 2:17PM
Anyone who puts any faith in a Bricklin venture is a dreamer (just like Bricklin).
This guy's a charlatan--think Preston Tucker here.
Bill Maher is an Idiot @ Nov 25th 2006 4:50PM
Bricklin...the man behind the Yugo and the SV-1.
gbh @ Dec 11th 2006 10:24AM
Gosh, I just hope that Malcolm's delusional/partner-in-crime punk kid chimes in hear soon.
I can't wait to hear (yet again) what an incredibly driven and successful guy his old pop is. I'm also waiting breathlessly for the documentary about Malcolm the Great and VV that the junior grifter was making.
Effen hilarious - all you gotta hear is that Malcolm Bricklin is involved and you know it's guaranteed to be nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Nothing Bricklin ever says or does holds up to any scrutiny at all - I cannot understand for the life of me why anyone would believe him.
Oh well, I'd wager that someday one of the 'friends' Bricklin has made over the years will pay him back with interest.
That One Person @ Dec 27th 2006 4:16PM
Didnt they say they were gonna sell Chinese built cars here like two years ago?
I have a feeling another "problem" is going to pop up and they are going to have to push back release dates AGAIN...