There is a special topic of cars all over the world - special cars. The so-called special car is an automobile product developed by the automobile brand specifically for a certain market region or country. However, the special car is also a double-edged sword, you can understand that a brand attaches great importance to the region, special research and development of new products. It can also be understood as a special target for a regional market, some improvements made, and the products sold in most regions are treated differently.
China's special supply car situation
Obviously, the "double-edged sword" problem of the special supply car mentioned above has occurred in China, and there have been and are still there today. We often hear some media celebrities and everyone say don't buy Chinese special cars. But sometimes you can't escape the law of true incense, and Chinese special cars are sometimes good! Nowadays, we are mixed, knowing that the allocation reduction can be used at a very low price to buy a special Chinese car that meets our needs, and we do see that many car manufacturers are also redeveloping new cars for Chinese consumers. I know that this car is good everywhere, and it meets my own car purchase needs, but I am still struggling with why the car I bought is not a global car? Why aren't there in foreign markets? Today Che Degang will take you to understand it - special car!
Overseas special vehicle situation
Special supply cars are not only for the Chinese market, but also for Toyota Motor, which we are familiar with, lexus, an entire brand that was founded to develop the North American market. The Models of the Asian Dragon and Lingfang that we can buy today were also specially developed for the North American market. In fact, Japanese car companies like to engage in differentiation the most, otherwise how to come to JDM. Acura and Infiniti are all brands developed for the North American market, the Japanese like it but can't buy it, and the Americans like JDM's painstaking efforts to change the car in his hand into the appearance of Japan. Chinese brands also have special models in overseas markets, such as the current Great Wall Haval H6 PHEV plug-in hybrid model, which is sold in the Thai market.
A special car in Chinese history
What everyone must not expect is that Mercedes-Benz, a brand with a luxury body, actually aimed at the Chinese auto market as early as the 1990s. During that period of history, when Chinese enterprises and private families were in desperate need of cars, Mercedes-Benz sniffed out business opportunities and launched a prototype car called FCC. FCC means "Family Car China" translated as a Chinese family car, which is enough to show the importance that Mercedes-Benz attaches to the Chinese market. And Mercedes-Benz has developed a new compact platform specifically for the FCC, completely as a new car, FCC is a 3.56 meters long, 4-door 5-seat compact MPV.
Although the body size is not large, due to the short engine compartment and the high height of the body, the space for the members of the car was absolutely spacious at that time. It is powered by a 55 hp 1.3-litre four-cylinder engine mated to a 5-speed manual transmission. At that time, the FCC test car license plate in China was "Ji A01688", and the 1688 harmonic sound was "all the way to the hair", I really did not expect that Mercedes-Benz actually did enough work in the FCC, but this car was considered too small, unsafe, and insufficient materials in the eyes of Chinese at that time, and failed to successfully achieve mass production in China. Since then, many parts of Mercedes-Benz's A-Class have been developed from the design of this car.
Of course, the luxury brands in the Chinese auto market are not only Mercedes-Benz, but everyone must not think of Porsche. In the early 1990s, Porsche developed a new brand for the Chinese market and designed a completely new model, the prototype named "C88". The C in C88 stands for "China", "Comfortable", "Cheap" and "Conservation" meaning "China", "comfortable", "affordable" and "environmentally friendly". And 88 is because Chinese like the number 8, and another point is that the price of this car is 80,000 8, can you think of at that time when a Santana had 130,000, a Porsche only needed 8,000 8?
It was equipped with a 1.1-liter four-cylinder EFI engine, which was only 10,000 yuan more expensive than the Xiali JT7100 at that time, and was already equipped with child safety seat installation positions at that time. The C88 was unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show in 1994, after which the plan was halted by China, and if the new brand originating from Porsche was mass-produced in China, it might be that the "old three things" in the future would really be rewritten.
Although there is another model that does not originate from the ideas of foreign car manufacturers, it has a very important value, that is, shanghai Volkswagen SH7181, that is, "Santana MPV". He was designed by Zhang Boguang, a designer at SAIC Motor. At that time, China's MPV market was almost blank, and we could only occasionally see the figures of "Toyota Overlord" and "Chevrolet Bullets" on the road, but these cars were very rare, and China needed an MPV that could produce itself.
So Zhang Boguang developed based on Shanghai Volkswagen's Santana, the engine cover was shortened, the roof was raised, and the triangle window was designed at the position of the A-pillar to narrow the blind spot of vision. At that time, the idea was only because many enterprises and institutions in China needed small and comfortable MPV models to travel, and they could not always take small minibuses and vans, which was also the same as the purchase group of the Buick GL8 later. However, this car is still a complete Santana, but the appearance has been changed, the seat layout has changed, and the logo of the Volkswagen must of course be approved by volkswagen. Obviously Chinese their own products, the Germans did not believe it, at that time we did not have much say, this SH7181 naturally failed to usher in mass production. If it was really mass-produced at that time, there may not be anything wrong with the Buick GL8, and now Volkswagen Weiran must also be a sought-after product.
Since we talk about MPV, let's mention the Buick GL8, which was once a Chinese MPV god car. Many people think that the Buick GL8 is a special car in China, but in fact, this statement is not correct. The Buick GL8 was formerly known as the Chevrolet Venture in the United States, but due to security reasons, the Chevrolet Venture could not continue to be sold in the United States. GM saw the business opportunities in the Chinese market, so it hung up the Buick logo, named buick GL8 and launched it into the Chinese market in 2004.
After this, the Buick GL8 ushered in great success in the Chinese MPV market, so Buick continued to develop the Buick GL8 model and use it for sales in the Chinese market. It should be known that the sales volume of Buick GL8 is currently the champion of the domestic commercial MPV market, so in the face of such a large market, Buick has no reason not to continue to develop GL8 models. Originally, GL8 was named after the 2+3+3 8-seat design. After that, the Buick GL6 is a completely Chinese special model, but since its listing, it has been using a three-cylinder engine, and it is conceivable that sales must not be high. Therefore, such a Chinese special supply car is a complete failure case.
Of course, when it comes to failure, we have to talk about the success case, but this successful case was later destroyed by his own hands, it is Ford Ford Forres. The English name of ford ford forures is Escort, and friends familiar with the history of automobiles should know that this car came out in the UK as early as 1967 and was discontinued in 2003, during which a total of 6 generations of products were launched, which is a model developed for Europe by Ford. In the Chinese auto market, there are countless models listed in China under the overseas name "Returning the Soul", and in 2015, Ford was listed in China under the English name of Escort, named Ford Ford Forres.
To say that the Ford Ford Forris and the previous Ford Accord positioning are really similar, are compact cars, but the Ford Ford Forres is a model developed for the Chinese market, and it is really successful. After the listing, many consumers in second- and third-tier cities rushed to buy, because the price was cheap and the driving texture was very good, and the landing of the medium-sized model was about 100,000 yuan. Since 2018, Ford has successively installed three-cylinder engines on Fox and Forres, and sales have plummeted, and the top 5 models in the compact sedan that year have directly plummeted, and it can be said that Ford personally destroyed the Forres.
Ford has recently begun to make a comeback, recently introducing the new Mondeo. This set of roads is very similar to the Ford Escort, but the timing is just right. Ford Mondeo is no stranger to everyone, before it was a global model, mainly sold in europe and the United States, and sales have been good. As early as 2004, it entered the Chinese market, and the sales volume in China at that time was also among the top ten medium-sized cars.
However, the recently launched new Ford Mondeo is a brand new model specially developed for the Chinese market, with a wheelbase of 2945mm, and a 12.3+ 27-inch panoramic screen, and the car machine system is also very good, priced between 15.98-21.68 million yuan, which is extremely cost-effective. Ford finally understood what Chinese wanted this time, large space high-tech low price, four-cylinder engine also returned. But Ford Mondeo announced its exit from the European and American markets last year, and the last Ford Mondeo, code-named CD391, left the Valencia plant in early April, marking that Ford Mondeo will only produce and sell in China in the future. Therefore, the new Ford Mondeo is a full-fledged Chinese special supply car, and its future depends on whether Chinese consumers accept it.
Chedegang Summary:
In the 1990s, in the face of China's huge market prospects, luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Porsche worked hard to develop prototypes, intending to enter the domestic market. However, due to various reasons, they have not been able to successfully ride on the road of China. We didn't have much say in localizing and improving some overseas products at that time, but now it's different. China has become the world's largest single market for automobiles, and if you want to have a good development in China, you must make reasonable improvements to the Chinese market.
This point SAIC Volkswagen may do the most, although everyone always says that the most understanding of Chinese is Volkswagen, in fact, it is really true, otherwise how can Langyi have such high sales? Like Hyundai Fiesta, Nissan Bluebird, Toyota Asia Lion, Volkswagen Tuon, Volkswagen Hui Ang, Lingdu L, etc. are all special models in the Chinese market, as long as the car companies are serious about the Chinese car market, these special cars are not worth buying, and everyone does not need to feel that there is differentiation. In the same way, Geely has Proton for Malaysia improvement overseas, the Great Wall also has many models for overseas improvement, once imported to China's Dodge Coolway, and now overseas is also affixed with the Dodge Coolway logo of GAC Trumpchi GS5!