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NEWS
Qoros teases all-new prestige sedan
New Chinese luxo brand aims to carve a niche in the prestige ranks, commencing with Geneva debut for first offeringStart-up Chinese luxury-car brand Qoros is using the drip-feed approach in the lead-up to the unveiling of its first offering – a compact prestige sedan – at the Geneva motor show in March.
The C-segment car will follow its Geneva debut with an appearance at the Shanghai motor show in April, and Chinese sales start at the end of 2013, with the first cars arriving in Europe (and possibly other markets) shortly thereafter.
For now, the company has issued a handful of renderings of the all-new compact sedan, and although three of the sketches are relatively abstract, the one of the car’s rear end is likely to closely resemble the actual entity.
In its press release, Qoros Auto says its first production model “reflects shapes and elements of modern German automobile design” and adds that the vehicles have been developed for Europe and China.
Safety has traditionally not been a forte of Chinese-built cars, but Qoros claims its maiden model will be the first car manufactured in China to be awarded the maximum five-star ranking in the Euro NCAP crash test.
Debuting alongside the compact sedan at the Geneva show will be two concept cars that allegedly provide a glimpse into the future of the Qoros family of models.
A bit of background about Qoros – It was founded in 2007 as a joint venture between Chery Automobile, China’s largest independent car manufacturer, and Israel Corporation, a global industrial holding company.
The company headquarters are located in Changshu (one of the hubs for China’s rapidly growing automobile industry) where it is readying a new state-of-the-art plant that’s claimed to be an environmentally-sustainable production facility.
The plant will have an initial production capacity of 150,000 vehicles per year, and a maximum capacity of 450,000 units annually.
Qoros has also enlisted the support of globally-renowned suppliers such as Magna Steyr, TRW, Continental, Bosch, Microsoft and Iconmobile.
The design team, which is based in Munich and Shanghaim, is led by Gert Volker Hildebrand, who has promised the Qoros line-up will bring freshness and individuality to the market.
“Designing cars is one of the very best jobs in the world. But very few designers have the chance to design the badge first, and then go on to reflect a completely new vision and dream by designing a brand’s first family of cars,” Hildebrand said.
“We are not subject to the constraints of further developing a fully-fledged style, but rather are in the early stages of moulding our own tradition. It will just follow the new brand philosophy which is also in its infancy.”
Apart from offering “exceptional quality”, Hildebrand says the Qoros models will be distinguished by long wheelbases and short overhangs.
Going on the accompanying renderings, we’re seeing more than a hint of Kia’s current design language, but Hildebrand says Qoros cars will have an unmistakable brand identity, one of the hallmarks of which is a vertically slotted radiator grille that contrasts with the front end’s fundamentally horizontal theme.
The brand logo is a horizontally elongated, three-dimensional letter Q, which is also meant to allude to the quality that the Qoros family of cars will allegedly embody.
We’ll know whether there’s any substance to this claim once we’ve seen the genuine article at the Geneva show in March.
In the meantime, we expect to receive a couple more tidbits of information and teaser images from China’s prestige wannabe.
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Written byGautam Sharma
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