China's F1 entry... sorta
There have been many pretenders to the throne of "F1 car for the road". Ferrari, McLaren... even newcomer Caparo has joined the frey. But this has to be the farthest contender off the mark, if not the most worthy of the name "pretender" at least.
Our friends at The Hollywood Extra have a spy shot and an artist's rendering of a clone, of all things, wearing the F1 nameplate. The car, which appears to be a carbon copy of Toyota's cut-price Aygo, is made by Byd, one of the many Chinese automakers turning out carbon-copy clones of mainstream vehicles already on the market elsewhere in the world. The shocker: it's purported to have a list price equivalent to $3,500 in Chinese Yuan. That's right, the price of this car is probably less than a single tire on an actual F1 car.
[Source: The Hollywood Extra]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
VPN 10:25AM (10/23/2007)
Everyone please boycott cheap Chinese **** whenever it comes here. The US needs to stop feeding the Chinese economy especially if our government is the one spreading the need for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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nissanfreak87 10:22AM (10/23/2007)
Agreed, people are talking about how great of a country china is all of the sudden, yes, it's a great country where being a Christian is an offense punishable by death. Yep, that's a country we can all support!!!
I'm being extremely sarcastic if you all couldn't tell.
Bill Ford 10:42AM (10/23/2007)
That is an interesting thought - using slave labour and complaining about feeding the slaves.
However, I agree that we need to save money to liberate a few more countries from their natural resources.
Dazza 1:59PM (10/23/2007)
If you want the US to more effectively boycott the Chinese economy to stunt its growth, then the likes of Ford and GM should pull out of manufacturing and selling cars in China. You can't get on a moral high horse which conflicts with your own interests.
nissanfreak87 10:20AM (10/23/2007)
How do Chinese car companies get away with stealing designs from other companies? It's extremely illegal. Couldn't the World court do something about this? I'm sure All these companies would appreciate sales in China, instead of a copy of their vehicle being sold there.
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Pete 10:24AM (10/23/2007)
China is a communist country. They don't recognize intellectual property...copywrited materials...etc.
nissanfreak87 10:29AM (10/23/2007)
That's true, I forgot about that. As a designer, the only thing I really have before production is intellectual property, so if someone stole it, I'd be pretty angry, too bad BMW, Toyota, etc... can't sue these little companies out of existence like Dyson did their copy-cat.
Menice 10:36AM (10/23/2007)
there's a "World Court" ?
i'm surprised they havent started selling cars in that checkerboard pattern thinking they were ripping someone off.
we americans support communism all day long.....sad as that is.
nissanfreak87 10:41AM (10/23/2007)
yeah, it's where they try war criminals and countries that allow stuff like this to go on, basically if there is an international law broken, like stealing designs or murdering tons of people, then it goes to the world court.
ugg.tryptophan 5:36PM (10/23/2007)
There is no Chinese word for "copyright".
k.w.a 10:46AM (10/23/2007)
it's funny how they have this F1 all hidden under masquing tape.... are they worried someone will steal their design? hahaha
surely a design as original as theirs should be kept confidential at all costs
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Mondo 10:59AM (10/23/2007)
Mark my words, give Chinese car companies 15-20 years in the market and they will be close to the level of Hyundai/Kia now. 15-20 years after that one of them will be challenging Toyota for world market supremacy.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I really don't know but the economist in me says competition is good and global competition is globally good.
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SuperSkyline89 11:11AM (10/23/2007)
It would definitely be a bad thing. Competition is one thing, but making unsafe clones of existing cars is just wrong. If China ever does rule the automotive industry, it will be a dark day for humanity, it will mean we are willing to give up quality and mostly safety to save a buck.
Mondo 12:07PM (10/23/2007)
I don't think Chinese automakers can do well while making inferior and unsafe products. That is one of the beauties of competition, we have other, safer, better designed choices. The Chinese automakers will have to improve drastically in many areas. I just think that, given time, they will improve and become a legitimate competitor.
So, if Chinese automakers improve to the point where they start making some pretty decent cars, like the Koreans with the Sonata, then is it still bad? Still don't know.
scooter 5:59PM (10/23/2007)
Is that a counterfeit Caddy STS in the background behind the "masked" F1? We'll never know...
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Eric Liberatore 11:23AM (10/23/2007)
McLaren should have moved their offices to China earlier this year. Would have saved them $100 million.
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Hank 11:23AM (10/23/2007)
you know, it may very well be that Toyota 'sold' the design of their Aygo to Byd for some good money. Maybe it's an older design that Toyota is retiring, might as well make a few more bucks off of it??
why else are we not hearing even a complaint from Toyota itself???
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Dazza 2:05PM (10/23/2007)
The design was actually penned by PSA as part of a joint venture between both PSA and Toyota. All three models are built at the same facility in the Czech Republic.
The Byd model apes the Toyota variant the most, but it's PSA who should be getting out of their pram over the issue.
epp_b 11:28AM (10/23/2007)
Wow, first post, and we're already bashing China using the ridiculous, over-Americanized concept of copyright.
I feel no sympathy for you guys. You outsource your dirt-cheap labour to sweat-shops in China so you can have your cheap, plastic crap from Walmart, and you expect them to honour your absurd concept of "intellectual property" (I like to refer to enforcement of such as "thought crime").
The fact is, you're screwed and there's nothing you can do about it. No one is going to vote for the candidate who releases your reliance on China for your boxstore goods, thereby raising the price of said goods five-fold, so that China will have any sort of incentive to enforce your thought crimes.
Look, I'm not saying China is perfect (they're civil liberties record is appalling), but you've got a long way to go before you can start throwing around insults and accusations.
["That's true, I forgot about that. As a designer, the only thing I really have before production is intellectual property"]
Then you need to seriously rethink your business model, because it has already failed.
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nissanfreak87 2:01PM (10/23/2007)
Wow, we're opinionated today. Basically you're angry at us because we think that a person has a right to their ideas? That if they have a technical innovation, or a new business idea that they are not allowed possession of that? It's common business law, usually called a non-compete clause saying that you have complete ownership of a certain product, in this case, a certain type of car.
The whole problem here is that this company stole a design, which is extremely illegal. It's pretty much like identity theft.
When I talked about intellectual property I was talking pre-production, like before something is produced, so make sure you use the entire quote before you try to make someone look stupid, it's called perversion of the truth and is a crime. I'm a design student right now and do some design work for my father's business, which produces all of it's product in the U.S.A., and is doing quite well, may I add.
I'd like to know what percentage of the things you own were produced in a Chinese sweat shop, probably more than you know, but I forgot, you're absolutely perfect in every single way and America is the worst thing to ever happen. Sorry you feel that way.