Click above for high-res gallery of the Brilliance BS4 Wagon
The Brilliance BS4 sedan is a pretty good-looking car, so it stands to reason that its wagon variant would be easy on the eyes as well. Unveiled in Beijing, the BS4 wagon is indeed a snazzy-looking, ostensibly practical machine. Power comes from a 1.8L Mitsubishi G93 four-cylinder making 134 hp (100 kW) at 6500 rpm. The BS4 wagon also comes equipped with an alphabet soup of safety feature acronyms like "ABS + EBD + EDS" but word association games involving "Brilliance" and "safety" only call to mind the BS6 Euro NCAP debacle (since corrected, allegedly... but still). The bad news continues, as a recent Inside Line review of the BS4 sedan concluded that the car was generally lackluster at best. Based on that, we can probably assume that the same shortcomings afflict the wagon. It does look nice, at least.
Pininfarina is making its voice heard designs seen in China, with 30-percent of the company's business now being done with the Asian nation. At this month's Beijing Motor Show, two Chinese automakers will reveal three models designed and, in some cases, engineered by the Italian firm. What's more, all of the cars are meant to be sold in the European market, as well.
Anhui Jianghuai will have two Pininfarina designed cars, a sedan code named A108 (pictured) and a five-door hatch code named A107. They are meant to hit European markets in late 2009. Brilliance, which is BMW's Chinese partner, will be showing off the BS4 station wagon. It will head to Europe with the re-engineered BS6 sedan.
Though they won't be unveiling new cars, Pininfarina's other Chinese clients include Chery, Changfeng, and Hafei, who together have at least seven cars penned by Ferrari's favorite design house.
We've been hearing a lot lately about Chinese cars' impending arrival on our shores. According to what could be cooler heads -- or decoys! (insert maniacal laugh, here) -- that simply isn't the case. At a recent event in Detroit, China's ambassador to the U.S., Zhou Wenzhong, said Chinese carmakers can't even make enough cars for the Chinese, much less fulfill America's production needs.
He was seconded by Zhang Lin, a Chery executive, who said that the company first wished to solidify its operations in emerging markets before attacking exporting to the United States. The Milky Way-sized trade deficit between the U.S. and China was also mentioned as a reason for taking a long term approach to entering the US market.
Of note, though, is that Chery is not one of the five Chinese makers attending the 2008 Detroit Show. One of those companies, China Automotive Group/ZXNA, is headed by Steve Saleen, and we wonder if he got the memo about not being in a rush to begin Stateside operation.
As we reported yesterday, Chinese automaker Brilliance appears to have addressed a number of the shortcomings in its BS6 sedan that caused it to spectacularly fail a Euro NCAP crash test conducted earlier this year by Germany's ADAC. The car has been re-tested, this time in Spain (again, according to Euro NCAP standards), and has now received a 3-star crash rating.
We now have video of the new test regimen, and it's embedded after the jump along with the original German one for comparison. As you can see, the BS6 fares much better this time around, with the car holding up a lot better from the A-pillar and back. In the photo above from China Car Times, the doors all opened properly following the crash. Whether other Chinese automakers will look at the Brilliance saga and learn from it is unknown. For its part, Brilliance appears to have learned a hard lesson. If you want to sell cars in lucrative Western markets, they need to perform better than papier mâché sculptures in crash tests.
Follow the jump for videos of the crash tests, old and new.
Following its utterly calamitous performance in crash tests conducted by Germany's ADAC, Chinese automaker Brilliance said that it would work with the German body to improve the car's safety. To be honest, we don't know if any such changes have been designed or implemented yet, but apparently, Brilliance has done something.
According to a wire report carried by Forbes.com, the Brilliance BS6 has been tested by Spain's Idiada Automotive Technologies SA. Unlike the test in Germany earlier this summer, the Brilliance garnered a 3-star rating as it passed the test performed in accordance with Euro NCAP guidelines. According to Brilliance, that's the best rating ever for a Chinese car tested under the European standards. According to the report, Brilliance plans on using this test success to drum up business in Europe and the US. Unfortunately, we haven't come across any photos or video of the Spanish test yet. If and when we do, we'll post them so you can compare them to the ADAC test the car failed earlier in the summer.
If you want to know what the inside of a Brilliance coupe looks like before it disintegrates in an NCAP test, pictures are finally available. As was said of the sedan, it's actually ... all right. There's a plethora of plastic, it's a bit on the dark side, and forget about sitting in the back seats -- but you can say the same things about plenty of non-Chinese coupes. In time, we're sure that the Chinese will get the minor issue of crash survivability sorted out; the question is how much time will it take. Until then, the best bet is look, don't touch.
Brilliance China Automotive Holdings, Inc., front-and-center in the news of late thanks to a disastrous performance by its BS6 sedan in German crash tests last month, has announced that it's delisting its American Depositary Shares from the New York Stock Exchange. Brilliance is making its exit due to a decline in trading volume and an uptick in related administrative costs.
The shares will me made available over-the-counter once the delisting is complete, and regular shares in the company will continue to be traded via the Hong Kong Stock market. brilliance is BMW's partner in the Chinese market, where it manufactures cars for the German automaker. As previously noted, it also builds its own branded vehicles such as the aforementioned BS6 (a.k.a. the Zhonghua in China), the Jinjue, shown above, and others.
The first reported dumping of the Brilliance BS6 has taken place in Belgium, where dealer Karel Cardoen has halted sales of the car in the wake of its horrifying crash test conducted by Germany's ADAC. In perhaps the understatement of the year, Automotive News Europe quotes Cardonen as saying, "We don't think this car is good to sell in Europe."
The BS6, for those of you new to the story, is a Chinese luxury sedan and recent arrival into the European automobile market. It recently flunked the ADAC crash tests in spectacular fashion, and In the wake of that fiasco, the automaker said that it didn't feel the poor crash results would have a negative impact on sales.
So much for that. Cardoen's dealership was one of just three that were offering the car to European customers. The remaining two are both in Germany. Cardoen said he'll reconsider his position if the safety of the car improves.
Chinese automaker Brilliance has stated that its European distributor is confident it'll be able to sell the BS6 sedan on the continent despite its pathetic showing in Germany's ADAC crash tests. In case you missed it the first time around, the BS6 garnered a 1-star rating after collapsing in on itself during the frontal offset test and experiencing similarly poor results in the side-impact test as well. The car rapidly became the object of well-deserved ridicule as the story spread through the Internet. According to Reuters, Brilliance has accused the German media of "viciously playing up" the crash results, noting that it passed the basic safety test required for entry into the European market, as well as a voluntary NCAP test after that. How the BS6 passed any safety test at all is remarkable to us after seeing the ADAC videos. (Seriously, what does the basic safety test Brilliance mentions consist of? Throwing Nerf balls at the car? Subjecting it to a pillow fight?)
Follow the jump for more info, opinion and to view the crash test videos that supposedly won't hurt the car's saleability in the European market.
China's Brilliance BS6 is a recent entry into the European market, positioned as a premium-style import sedan at a budget price. Well, after seeing the videos of the car undergoing crash testing using Euro NCAP guidelines at the ADAC (Germany's AAA, essentially) test center, one thing's certain: buyers get what they pay for. The BS6, as currently constructed, appears to a complete piece of crap. The horrifying 40 mph offset frontal crash test video shows damage that can be described as catastrophic at best. The A-pillar collapses and folds up like a cheap suitcase, forcing the driver's door to pop largely out of its frame, while the lower portion of the car buckles like it's made of recycled pop cans. We wouldn't want to be the driver's legs...or any other part of him for that matter. To open the mangled door afterwards, the ADAC techs needed to use a huge crowbar to get it to budge. ADAC notes that the pedals intruded a foot and a half (32 cm) into the driver's space, while the IP moved in almost 8 inches (20 cm). Needless to say, the BS6 failed the test, garnering just 1 star.
Follow the jump for more coverage/opinion and the related videos. Thanks to Andy B. for the tip!
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