BEIJING MOTOR SHOW: JAC Heyue SC Coupe

Chinese car-makers are steadily evolving from blatant copycats to purveyors of products that have at least some element of originality about them.

Pictured alongside is a coupe that falls somewhere in between the two ends of this spectrum.

Dubbed the JAC Heyue SC Coupe, it debuts at this week’s Beijing motor show and follows on from the TJ Innova S11 concept the same manufacturer wheeled out at the 2009 Shanghai motor show.

Due to go on sale in China later this year, the Heyue SC will reportedly be priced in that market from 200,000 yuan, which converts to just under $31k in our money.

Technical details are still sketchy, but it’s believed the rear-wheel-drive coupe is propelled by a 2.4-litre four-cylinder engine with 121kW and 217Nm, relayed to the tarmac by a five-speed manual gearbox.

No acceleration figures are as yet available, but the Heyue is allegedly good for a top whack of 205km/h.

JAC has churned out some shameless near-replicas in the past – including a rip-off of Ford’s F150 (even the badge on the grille was virtually unchanged) – but the Heyue isn’t quite so brazen in its mimicking.

Granted, the large air intakes look like they’ve been pilfered from a Lamborghini Gallardo, while the taillights are pure Ferrari Enzo, but at least the overall proportions of the car are unique. That said, the beak does have more than a little in common with the handful of Lotus concepts wheeled out at the 2010 Paris motor show.

A bit of background about JAC Motors (officially Jianghuai Automobile Co Ltd) – it’s a state-owned automobile and commercial vehicle manufacturer that churned out 466,800 vehicles in 2011, ranking it as the ninth-largest China-based automaker by unit production.

JAC’s model line-up spans from small city cars to commercial trucks and its R&D facility in Hefei (capital of Anhui province) is complemented by offshore R&D centres in Turin and Tokyo.

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