Beijing '08 Preview: Chery to unveil new small car that's neither a copy or ugly

Chery Motors first came to the worlds attention a few years ago when one of the first products, the QQ mini-car turned out to have a rather startling resemblance to the Daewoo Matiz which was being sold in China as the Chevy Spark. It turned out on closer examination that the components on the QQ and Spark were actually interchangeable. This sparked (forgive the bad pun) the ire of General Motors which attempted to sue Chery both for stealing the design of the car and too closely copying the Chevy brand mark. Chinese intellectual property protections being what they are (that is to say, almost non-existent), the QQ is still on the market. Now it appears that Chery is getting set to launch a new small car - possibly to be dubbed the QQ2 - at the upcoming Beijing Motor Show. Many previous attempts by Chinese manufacturers to create original designs that did not not bear an excessive resemblance to an existing car while also being aesthetically pleasing have been, to say the least, wildly unsuccessful. Not so this time. While not hugely original, the S18/QQ2 is reasonably easy to look at. The big question is will something like this car be used as the basis for whatever collaboration may ultimately happen between Chery and Chrysler?

[Source: China Car Times]