Auto Design

In the past days, the Turin Court has ruled hat the Great Wall Peri looks like a Fiat Panda with a different front end and consequently cannot be sold in Europe. Or, to be accurate it can, at a very high cost for those who produce, import and sell it. The claim was presented by Fiat, the maker of the Panda designed for them by Stile Bertone. I do not know who has actually produced the blueprints for the Peri but I remember hearing – some years ago – to some top Italian car design and engineering consultants that some Chinese company entering the car industry used to candidly ask them to just copy an existing (and potentially successful) car and help them setting up the production lines. Obviously some of these consultants have accepted when they should have not accepted. Sure, just duplicating an existing project saves a lot of time, some money and all the risks related to experimenting with something news.

Some of the top European design and engineering companies declined to work as photocopy maker and convinced their Chinese partner to invest a little more money and some extra time to create a new car of their own. Most of the Chinese carmakers were vey quick to understand the benefits and were proud enough to take the “creativity” path. The recent motor show in Beijing has clearly demonstrated the fantastic progress made by the Chinese car industry and soon these clones will be forgotten.

With its ruling, the Turin Court has apparently condemned Great Wall in favour of Fiat. In reality the company that will eventually benefit most of the decision is the Chinese maker, whose chances to preserve its image and credibility will be on a pair with their Chinese competitors as long as it is not damage by some sales in Europe that will benefit importers and dealers in the short term but ruin the “image” of the maker in the long term.

The evolution of the market is clear: now that most European, Japanese and Korean cars have attained a high degree of design appeal, quality, reliability and value-for-price what makes the real difference is the respect each brand has gained in the different markets. This has a lot to do with marketing policy, importer and dealers, after sales service and ….image.

Image and credibility is what newcomers such as the Chinese makers will need to build in the next years. This will take time. A lot of time. More time than it takes to develop a new car.

Time and design. Design remains for most established brands the key (or the first) reason for the choice of a new car purchase. It is going to even more important for the Chinese industry. A design clone sends a lot of negative message: it is a copy, it is cheap, it comes from a company that cannot design a car and can barely copy it. It is for buyers, which have no culture, no ethical value and no money to buy the original. Take the Hongxing Auto CEO, a blatant copy of a BMW X5 mixed with the X3, or the Smart clone built by Shuanghuan Auto. Who will be wanting to concede that he has been dreaming about the car all this time but could not afford to buy it but now he has enough money to buy a copy that just looks like an imitation of the original but has none of the quality, capability, style of the real thing.

The lawyer representing Great Wall at the Turin Court said they would appeal the ruling. Perhaps they want to save Great Wall to pay € 15,000 to Fiat for the first car the have imported to Europe or € 50,000 (that is a lot of money and a lot of Peri cars) for each additional car that is or would be imported.

It is their job and no one want to loose a case, but their Chinese should stop them and move ahead. They should talk to Fiat, reach a compromise with the Italian carmaker (which has a similar case open in China) and obtain permission to sell the Peri in China, just for the time to ready its “proprietary” replacement and limit the damages; considering them a part of the cost of the “learning process” that is needed in every new business start up. Doing so will assure them keeping their image clean in the most profitable export markets, until they are ready to come with their own design. It does not matter if it has been penned in China, Japan, and Germany or, as in most cases, in Italy. What really matters is that it is an honest expression of the own work, starting from their ability to judge and choose. A positive example?

Look at the Changhe Ideal that the Chinese maker has commissioned Stile Bertone to design. The Brilliance Zonghua, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italdesign and to the many new cars that Italdesign, Pininfarina, Torino Design have designed for the most successful all-Chinese carmaker Chery. Chery was indeed the first Chinese maker to experience the problems of imitative design with their clone of the Daewoo Matiz. Do you remember? Well, they were also the quickest in making a U-turn and switch to design of their own. Now they are the first one to take the benefits, at home and abroad.

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