After storming Europe in 2006, BMW's Chinese automaking partner Brilliance wants to start sending its BS6 sedan to our shores as soon as this year. If it does, it will be the first Chinese car maker to grace the US market.
According to Brilliance President Zhigang Liu, if the BS6's don't make it this year, then we'll get them in early 2008. When they arrive, you will know them by their . . . well, you won't actually know them, because each one looks like several different cars depending on where you stand. A resurrected and chromed-out Rover grill on a whatchamacallit front end, a perfectly nondescript profile, and a done-a-million-times Southeast Asian rear. The automotive equivalent of jambalaya, it's got a little bit of everything in it. Still, it's hard to say anything bad about the car. At least not the one in the picture.
Brilliance has put $1.3 billion into R&D for its line of sedans, and will invest that amount again over the next five years. As well, the company builds BMW's and Minis in Northeast China, so they should have a some sort of handle on quality control. There are no sales targets set yet, but we practically guarantee they can up their target if they swap the letters "BS" -- which probably stand for Shenyang Brilliance -- for almost anything else.
[Source: Reuters]
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