Chinese traffic jams are great equalizers: They slow down all cars (except black A6 with flashing lights and a police escort.) Our reader and commenter Daveinchina spotted this car with an odd paintjob on the Hukun Expressway in Songjiang, on the outskirts of Shanghai.
Dave thinks it’s a “new Chevy.” A few email later, he says “I think it’s a Chevy but I really don’t know what it is.” I don’t blame him.
With, for instance, SAIC’s Roewe 950 built on the platform of the Buick Lacrosse, which is rooted in the Opel Insignia, it takes a DNA test to know what is what these days.
Reader Macha says the car is a QOROS, the mystery car company that is a 50:50 joint venture between Chery and Israel Corporation (formerly Quantum LLC) and that has a very German management.
See a prototype? Shoot it. Send it.
It could also be an MG
The lurid checkerboard paint scheme shouts “grab your phone and snap this top secret prototype!”
It looks very anonymous underneath all that camouflage. A normal paintjob would have been a far better disguise. Nobody would have noticed that it is brand new and not on the market yet.
Well actually I would have noticed it wasn’t right, but ya most people wouldn’t.
Would I have taken a picture? I tend to take pictures of strange cars here in China so probably. Would I have sent it here? nope, just added it to my oddity collection.
It kinda stinks there couldn’t be more of the interior showing in the article’s second photo, but the pair of exhaust pipes sticking out the back has me intrigued. That sort of touch usually denotes something with performance intentions, even nowadays, and it doesn’t seem like something they’d do to “disguise” the car. If that was the case, why stop at just two? I’d slap eight tail pipes on the back of that car!
That C-pillar says “Buick” rather than “Chevrolet” to me.
The profile of the rear door suggests it’s an Epsilon, and the wheels look awfully similar to the options on the current Lacrosse.
Doesn’t China require a license plate at the back of the vehicle?
It’s very common in China to see vehicles without tags and something like this to me is a no brainer to see it without tags. China if nothing else is very “flexible” when it comes to the law.
one thing I don’t miss about the year I spent living in China is the air quality. That is an impressive smog!
*ahem* According to official news, it’s fog, not smog. *ahem cough cough hack hack cough*
Yesterday was bad, AQI was around 350 at it’s peak.
To complicate the vehicle’s identity even more, SAIC is reviving the old Shanghai brand, and is reported to be using that brand name on a version of the Roewe 950.
Sorry for not following up on this. I just got into the hospital and had surgery. (broken bone, getting the metal plate removed, bone is healed)
This was taken out the window of the taxi I was in. I spotted it way ahead and didn’t think I’d get a chance to get a picture. Then we pulled up at the light next to it and I got out my phone/camera fast. The light changed and my smartphone is a bit slow.
So some things I noticed, the wheels, those are definitely test mule wheels they looked like a GM product up close. The vehicle is about the size of a Chevy Cruze. The interior was pretty tore up, lots of wires dangling out of the dash, looked like there was lots of different things being tested. There was camouflage all over the top of the dash too. I couldn’t see over the windowsill to see the steering wheel, however that even had a cover over it. The car was completely stripped of any brand badges at all.
Honestly though I have no clue what it is, while I’m thinking cruze, it could easily be a Buick test mule too. I really wish we had seen it from the front, that would have given me a better idea what it was.
I will say this was being tested on a somewhat rainy day in Songjiang new city, it’s right outside Shanghai. The driver and passenger didn’t really seem to care that I was taking a picture they were to busy smoking.
This is not the first test mule I’ve seen but it’s the first one I’ve ever seen that I couldn’t figure out what it was. Also the first one I ever got a picture of.
I sure would like to know what it is, Qoros looks plausible but from what I can see of the front profile and what I remember, it’s not that car.
Good luck and feel better.