MOTORING NEWS 'Go East' for China's booming automotive industry

By Ray Massey
Once upon a time, the advice to any young person of ambition was ‘Go West’. now it’s very definitely ‘Go east’.
You have only to look at how the centre of gravity for the world’s motor industry has shifted decisively in that direction.
China’s long march to become an automotive giant has been as spectacular as the unfeasibly stretched Range Rover on show at the Beijing Auto Show in booming China.

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A model poses next to a stretched Range Rover at the Beijing Auto Show. Luxury car sales in China have soared

The Beijing show is growing massively in importance and is starting to overshadow some of the more traditional events in the West after the shopping trips the Chinese are making to snap up Western car companies, such as Britain’s MG-Rover and Volvo, of Sweden.
The surge has been propelled by an economic boom that created a new crop of Chinese millionaires and several dozen billionaires in a country that, 15 years ago, had hardly any private cars.
I can vouch for that. I travelled around china in the mid eighties and bicycled extensively around Beijing when there was barely a car on the road, but there seemed to be - as the song says - about nine million bicycles.

 

China’s car market is now the world’s biggest - and it’s getting ready to expand its export business to Britain.

Luxury car sales in China soared 66 per cent in the first three months of the year.

Speaking at the Beijing auto Show, Mercedes-Benz boss dieter Zetsche said: ‘China is increasingly becoming the engine of our industry.’

Sales of its cars there soared 112 per cent in the first quarter of this year to 23,600 vehicles.

China’s mainland now has 825,000 people worth around £1million, say experts. And leading motor magazine Autocar reckons that, in the wake of the Japanese and the Koreans, the Chinese automotive invasion of Britain is gearing up.

It will be spearheaded next year by the aptly named ‘Great Wall’ car brand brought into the UK by international Motors, better known for bringing in Japanese Subarus and Daihatsus.

 

BMW stormed into Beijing with its stately new flagship Grancoupe prototype, which is set to hit showrooms as the Bavarian car-maker’s 8-series.

BMW's GranCoupe unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show

Unveiled at a special BMW ‘design night’, it has been created to take on the likes of the Porsche Panamera, the Maserati Quattro-porte, the Audi A7 and Aston Martin’s Rapide.
Expect a production version in 2012. It’s lower and wider than the current flagship 7-series saloon.

 

China, says Rolls-Royce, is now its third-largest market after the United States and Britain, with sales soaring 200 per cent in the first quarter to more than 20 vehicles.

It has added a production line and hired more workers partly to meet Chinese demand.

Rolls-Royce’s new chief executive Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes said: 'I see China will even overtake the UK - our home market - this year.’

Rolls-Royce publishes a Chinese-language luxury magazine and invites customers from China to visit its factory in Goodwood, Weast Sussex, to see its cars being made.

 

Ford caught the eye with this perky ‘Start’ car - said to be the prototype for a new city car. Similar in size to the Ka, the curvy three-door Start hatchback is powered by a frugal 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbocharged EcoBoost engine to take on the marvellous Mini and Fiat’s fantastic 500.

The Ford Start car is powered by an economical 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbocharged EcoBoost engine

Ford reckons it develops the same power as a conventional 1.6-litre petrol engine, yet has emissions of under 100g/ km of cO2 on which vehicles are now taxed.

 

Zero to hero? The MG Zero is a British-designed but Chinese-owned rival to the Ford Fiesta unveiled in Beijing.

It was developed by a team led by British Mg design director tony Williams-Kenny, based in Birmingham.

Guy Jones, Mg Motor UK sales and marketing director of the firm, said: ‘Mg Zero is crucial to the development of the brand globally, as it gives clear direction for the future beyond the current products. We are all proud to see our British-designed vehicle wearing the Mg badge creating such an impact in Beijing.’

 

Once the pride of Britain, in the wake of the MG-Rover fiasco, MG Motor UK is now a subsidiary of China’s largest car-maker, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation which sold more than 2.72 million vehicles in 2009.
It now sells the £13,799 MG TF sports car and from the end of 2010 will begin assembly of the MG6 from Longbridge in Birmingham.