Thanks to the notoriously leaky Chinese Patent and Trademark Office, and the intrepid research of Carnewschina, we now know that Honda will enter the Chinese market with a second “Chinese” brand.
Honda has two joint ventures in China, Guangzhou-Honda and Dongfeng-Honda. The Guangzhou-Honda sub-brand is called Everus and we showed you their first car, the S1, which we spotted in a quiet corner of the Shanghai Motor Show.
No JV should be left behind, so Dongfeng-Honda will have its own “Chinese” brand called Ciimo, or “Si Ming” in Chinese. At least that’s what the trademark-application says.
According to Carnewschina, Dongfeng gets a slightly better deal. While the Everus S1 is based on the outdated Honda City, the first Ciimo will be based on the last-gen Honda Civic.
First I thought it said “Clito”, then I saw the logo…
That’s not a model name? Honda Cii sounds pretty modern and tech.
I admit I don’t have that great an understanding of what makes the biggest auto market in the world tick. Honda wants to increase its sales there, yet they’re using a nondescript logo and not the latest, perhaps most fashionable, products.
Are they importing these cars from already paid for factories, or are they retooling existing plants, or starting new ones, with the older vehicles?
At first I thought this was a blatant ripoff of Mazda’s logo from the 1990s…