Get Hotcars Premium. Start your free trial today
From sports cars to SUVs, there's a weird Chinese copycat for almost every popular model out there.
The Chinese automotive industry has seen truly unprecedented growth in the last three decades. For the largest part of the 20th century, China was mostly building military vehicles or trucks. As late as 1985, there were just 5,200 passenger cars built in China, and even though there were imports from the Soviet Union, Japan, and other countries, private ownership of vehicles was almost non-existent, partly due to the socialist policies and partly due to the high import duties. In the 1980s, a number of Western companies, including AMC, Volkswagen, and Peugeot, started building cars in China through joint ventures with local companies. In the 1990s the industry really took off, with a number of big players emerging, such as BYD Auto, Brilliance China Auto, Geely, and Great Wall Motors.
Updated April 2022: With major car manufacturers unveiling new cars every year, the Chinese brands who love copying them have their hands full. We've updated this list to include some of these cars that have officially gone on sale as well as some new copycats that include everything from supercars to performance SUV knock-offs.
One factor that helped boost the Chinese automotive industry was the fact that producers didn't really bother with research and development, choosing instead to copy the design of Western cars and offering them at much lower prices. It's not astounding since China is very well known for its knock-off culture that copies everything from mobile phones to sneakers and handbags to even architecture. It's not that Chinese people are lazy or lack the imagination to come up with their own ideas. According to the National Palace Museum, copying in China goes back centuries, and it was very common in traditional art and craftsmanship to imitate the works of a master as "a method to study."
However, while "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," many Western carmakers didn't really appreciate Chinese companies copying their cars and selling them for profit. Despite lawsuits and criticism, some companies continue to imitate Chinese cars, although their proportion has declined in the last couple of years. In this way, there are Chinese cars that share so many similarities with Western counterparts that it's sometimes hard to distinguish them, and a more detailed look is required to spot the differences. Further below, you can see this by yourself.
It has been ages since a car has made us do a double-take, and virtually every single car enthusiast on the planet, no matter how educated they think they are, would have figured the Weikerui V7 was a Volkswagen Up!. Everything was "borrowed" from the small Volkswagen hatchback: The headlights, the grille, the badge, the wheels, the doors, the wheels, the taillights, even the glass boot lid is an exact copy from the Up!
The Weikerui V7 was unveiled in 2017, and it isn't just a copycat of the VW, it is a blatant clone. We're baffled this car exists, and that Volkswagen has made no records of taking legal action against Weikerui thus far.
Related: 10 Years On: The Volkswagen Up Is Still Going Strong
When Chinese companies try and steal other companies' designs, it's often mass-produced cars they try and aim for, like Toyotas, but Huansu had much bigger plans in mind and went straight after Lamborghini's performance SUV, the Urus. The first time we saw the C60, we couldn't definitely see the resemblance, but didn't think too much of it... then we started taking in the details. Huansu copied the Urus' front fascia design, and split the head- and tailights in the middle, smoothed out its side profile, and didn't even bother to change the rear diffuser - not even the color thereof. But the worst of it all is the C60's price... just $20,000. That means it's less than 10% of what a new Urus would set you back.
If this list was dedicated to the worst car names manufacturers ever gave to their models, the Beauty Leopard would have won first place hands down. Geely has a slight reputation for stealing other brands' designs, but the Beauty Leopard is one of their "less successful" attempts at doing so.
If we were to guess their thinking process, it would have gone something like this: Let's make a compact sports car... something like the Toyota Supra. But someone in their design team misunderstood, and instead of making a compact MK4 Supra, they made a crumbled one. That probably explains why its body is so awkwardly short, and its face so flat.
Related: A Closer Look At The Limited-Run Toyota GR Supra GT4 50 Edition Race Car
The Geely GE (later rebranded as "Emgrand GE") was announced in 2009, with Geely suggesting that they were “re-inventing the classic,” according to Daily Mail. However, the lady on the bonnet and the large radiator grille, as well as the overall shape of the car, suggested that they didn't so much “re-invent the classic” as drew a lot of inspiration from the Rolls-Royce Phantom, a thing that was quickly noticed by Rolls-Royce. It was hard for them not to notice because the Geely GE was displayed at the Shanghai Motor Show very close to the Rolls-Royce stand with an actual Phantom. Geely said that they didn’t see any similarities and that the cars were different.
It was reported at the time that Rolls-Royce was considering a lawsuit against Geely. However, since the Geely GE was tagged at just $44,000, it’s unlikely that it would’ve infringed on Rolls-Royce Phantom’s market, where prices start at $350,000. Nevertheless, in 2011, Geely restyled the GE and rebranded it as "Emgrand."
Related: This Is How Much A 2003 Rolls-Royce Phantom Costs Today
The BYD S8 was the first Chinese hardtop convertible announced in 2006 as the "F8." The rebranding from "F" to "S" was to highlight the car’s “sportiness,” although to call it "sporty" is a bit of a stretch. The front of the car resembles very closely a Mercedes-Benz CLK, although the rear half of the car (the roofline, the boot, the rear lights, and the bumper) seems like a copy of a Renault Megane CC. According to Jalopnik, the S8 is powered by a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine that'll go from 0 to 60 in 14 seconds, which kind of negates the point of it being a sporty convertible, but is not unexpected since the car has a weight of over 3,300 lbs. The S8 was unveiled at the Beijing auto show in 2006 and was ready for production by 2009 with prices between $22,000 and $37,000, which would be a fraction of a cost of a CLK that was made between 2000 and 2009. But considering the choice between the F8, a used CLK, or another car for the same price, it’s hard to see why someone would choose the F8.
Conventionally, the K-One is considered to be a copy of the Mercedes-Benz GLA because it’s a small SUV and has all the styling elements from a Mercedes-Benz, like the shape of the headlights, the radiator grille, etc. However, while the GLA looks very stylish with a width of 71 inches, the K-One developers kept things simple. The K-One is smaller than the GLA, with a wheelbase of 99 inches and a height of 63 inches, but both cars weigh around the same at roughly 3,100 pounds. What’s interesting, though, is that the K-One is fully electric. Underneath, the K-One hides a battery pack and an electric motor that makes the equivalent of 128 horsepower. The fact that the K-One is electric makes it almost ridiculous that when copying the Mercedes, the developers forgot to remove the exhaust-pipe cutouts from the rear bumper.
However, since this isn't in production yet and the exhaust outlets were noticed by pretty much everybody, the production model might have this “issue” addressed. There’s no information about the range of the car, and we still don’t know what the interior is going to look like, although considering that it has heavy batteries and weighs around the same as the GLA, it’s unlikely that it'll be made of high-quality materials.
The first-generation Chery QQ (later rebadged as QQ3) is one of the largest ripoffs by a Chinese car manufacturer. The car announced in 2003 was an almost exact carbon copy of the Daewoo Matiz/Chevrolet Spark produced by GM in South Korea. Even though Chery claimed that they developed the QQ on their own, the visual similarities are hard to ignore. What’s more, the cars were so similar that many parts were, in fact, interchangeable between the two cars, according to the BBC. GM Daewoo, a South Korean unit of GM, filed a lawsuit in 2005, and the case was settled for an undisclosed amount.
The Chery QQ wasn't sold in the US and some other countries, but it was a big seller in China and other Asian countries. In fact, because it was offered at between $4,000 and $7,000, it was much cheaper than the Matiz, which had a price tag of around $10,000.The Cherry QQ came with a smaller engine of just 800cc that developed just 51 hp, and there were a lot of issues with quality and reliability, which is expected from such a cheap car. However, the Chery QQ tapped into the budget city-car market, where the price is the key decision factor, which is why it managed to outsell the Matiz by around four-to-one, according to Autoblog.Related: It’s The End Of The Road For The Chevy Spark After 2022
Imagine this: A guy meets this gorgeous girl, he wants to impress her by telling her he drives one of the coolest compact SUVs out here, a Porsche Macan, so she immediately realizes what a good guy he is, and they start dating. Then, the girl wants to brag to her friends that her boyfriend is driving a Macan and sends them pictures. Her friends see that there's something wrong with the car and realize that it’s not a Macan, but a Chinese copy called the "Zotye SR8." The girl then realizes that the guy isn't so great after all and dumps him. So, was the Zotye SR8 such a good copy that the girl couldn’t tell the difference? No, most likely the girl didn’t have enough experience as a gold digger to have sat in an actual Porsche.
On the outside, the Zotye SR8 does indeed look very close to a Macan; even their badges seem alike. The interiors are also very similar. The differences are in the details. According to Forbes, the SR8 is powered by a 2.0-liter Mitsubishi engine that develops 190 horsepower connected to either a five-speed manual or a six-speed DCT, while the Macan can have a 2.0-liter turbo with 252 hp with an eight-speed DCT gearbox, but it also offers the choice of a 3.0-liter, a 3.6-liter V6, or a 3.0-liter V6 turbo diesel. There's also the price, with the SR9 costing around one-fifth of a Macan (between $16,000 and $24,000). So, you can imagine how much “Porsche” you can get for this kind of money.
The Landwind X7 was announced in 2015 and immediately sparked a lot of conversations over its resemblance with the Range Rover Evoque. There are some minor differences like the Landwind has a chrome strip over the grille and the headlights are slightly different between the two cars. Inside, the X7 has a larger screen than the Evoque and a gear lever (the Evoque has a knob). The seat designs are also very much alike, and so are a number of other details. Both cars are also powered by 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engines, although while Evoque’s has 237 horsepower and is connected to a nine-speed automatic gearbox, the Landwind X7 has its engine from the Mitsubishi, and it develops 190 horsepower, connected to a six-speed manual or an eight-speed automatic. The price for the Landwind starts at around $19,600, versus $86,300 for the Evoque.
Both models were displayed at the 2015 Guangzhou Motor Show, where Jaguar Range Rover presented the Evoque which was built in China in a joint venture with Chery Automobile. According to Reuters, JLR launched legal action against Jiangling Motor, the maker of the Landwind X7, in 2016. Later the same year, the Chinese authorities canceled the patents for the X7, saying that the Evoque’s design was displayed before the patent application was filed, while the X7’s patent was ruled invalid due to the vehicle's resemblance to the Evoque.
The Jonway UFO is an SUV that looks like a Toyota RAV4. According to Automotive News Europe, the UFO went on sale in China in 2006 and in Europe a year later, but at the time, it resembled the second-gen RAV4, so it used an outdated design. In Germany, the UFO went on sale with a price starting at $18,800, while the RAV4's starting price was $31,300.
In China, the price difference was even bigger. Of course, the lower price came with a lot of compromises in terms of quality, especially in the interior, as revealed by Autobild, which did a comparison of the UFO and the second-gen RAV4. Autobild noted the exposed bolts on the central console and that the quality of the plastic used for the 12V socket cover was worse than what was used in some yogurt cups. The UFO also initially came with front-wheel drive only, while the RAV4 had 4x4 as standard. Like most of their Chinese automotive peers, Jonway didn’t bother and sourced the engine from Mitsubishi. In 2013, Jonway presented a facelifted version that included new lights, a new bumper, and a new grille, among other things, making the final output resemble the RAV4 less.
The Dadi (also known as "Derways" in some markets) Shuttle was announced in 2005, and it looks like a carbon copy of the third-gen Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, at least at the front and the rear, while the side looks somewhat like a Honda CR-V or an Opel Frontera. The Shuttle was offered with either a Mitsubishi 2.4-liter diesel or a Peugeot 2.0-liter turbo diesel, or a 2.8-liter ISUZU engine.
None of the engines developed more than 150 hp, and considering the weight of the car, it doesn’t show anything exciting in terms of speed. Neither was the quality of the interior, which, though spacious, showed the traditional flaws of Chinese cars in the first decade of the century. Its flaws included the low quality of materials, gaps between panels, the lack of enough adjustments for the driver seat, and a low-placed back seat, which made it uncomfortable. However, the car was well suited for off-roading, having a ground clearance of 230 millimeters (9 inches) and a well-protected engine. In addition, at a relatively low cost of $22,000 in Russia, the car came as a four-wheel-drive SUV with dual-zone climate control and electric windows, although some users complained that a lot of this technology stopped working after a year.
This is a Huanghai Landscape V3, which looks exactly like the second-generation Lexus RX that was produced between 2003 and 2008 was launched in 2011, and its proportions are pretty close to the Lexus. However, swapping badges is unlikely to fool anyone. Okay, people might confuse the two cars when looking from a distance, but upon getting closer, the flaws that would’ve been inadmissible in a Japanese luxury car become pretty obvious.
In addition, while Lexus offers a wide selection of engines, ranging from 2.4 liters to 3.5 liters, and a hybrid, the Landscape V3 offers either a 2.0-liter or a 2.4-liter engine sourced from … Mitsubishi, obviously. The interior also pretty much copies the Lexus, with indistinguishable elements such as the three-spoke wheel dash instruments, gauges in three tunnels, and vertical vents in the middle of the dashboard. The car came with a price tag starting at $20,000, so obviously, we can’t talk about Lexus quality.
The Landscape V3 wasn't Huanghai’s first attempt to copy a Lexus. In 2007, the company released the Huanghai NCV, which had the front copied from a Pontiac Torrent, but the rear was a copy of the Lexus RX. Somehow, they made it work.
The Eagle Carrie is another example of how Chinese “designers” are skilled at combining two different cars into one. For the picture, we took just the front of the Suzhou Eagle Carrie, and you can see that it looks almost exactly like a Ferrari FF (some consider that it’s actually a Ferrari California). However, the Carrie, which was presented at the Shanghai Motor Show in 2015, looks more rounded, and that’s because the rest of the car was copied from a Porsche Cayman.
Even the badges of Porsche and Eagle are very similar. We have to give them credit, though, because the car transitions from the Ferrari and into a Porsche very smoothly. Moreover, the Eagle Carrie is a fully electric car that weighs just 1,763 lbs, and the manufacturer says it has a range of 160 miles. The battery pack is connected to two “in-wheel” electric motors that allow the car to get from zero to 60 mph in just 4.8 seconds, according to the company. Whether or not it’s true, we'll see — if and when the car actually gets into production. On Eagle’s website, there's a whole range of electric vehicles, from golf carts to busses to something they call “classic cars” that look like coach-built cars from the early days of automobiles, but there's no mention of the Eagle Carrie.
Like many other Western Cars, the Hummer has a number of replicas in China. There’s the BAIC Yongshi, the Shenyang SFQ2040, the Xiao Long XL2060L, and the Dongfeng Hanma (also known as the EQ2050). How the Dongfeng Hanma came into existence is an interesting story. According to carnewschina.com, AM General, which produced both the civilian Hummer and the military Humvee, tried to sell the Humvee to the People’s Liberation Army in the late 1980s, but the sale didn’t push through. Then, Desert Storm came, and people all around the world saw the Humvee and how effective it was.
The PLA wanted a Humvee, but instead of buying one, they acquired a bunch of civilian vehicles through Chinese oil companies. Even though officially, the cars were bought for oil exploration, they ended up in labs, where they got stripped down and reverse engineered. In the early 2000s, Dongfeng was one of the two companies that won a bid to build a Humvee for the PLA, and the first cars used AM General parts, but later, Dongfeng started to use its own parts. The only exception is the engine, which is built by Dongfeng under license from Cummins USA. Dongfeng also imported GM 6.5-liter V8s for civilian cars, but it was in order to avoid embargo, and while displayed at shows, the civilian version was never actually offered for sale.
The Shanghuan Noble (previously known as "Bubble") was announced in 2004 but only became known in the West in 2007, when it was set to be presented at the Bologna Motor Show in Italy ahead of European distributor Martin Motors' plans to start selling the car in Europe. It immediately drew criticism from Daimler for its resemblance to the Smart ForTwo, and even though Daimler managed to prevent the car from appearing at the Bologna Motor Show, Martin Motors carried on with the vehicle’s European homologation. Martin Motors argued that the Noble wasn't similar to the Smart because it was a four-seater and front-engined. In fact, while it looks like a Smart, the Shuanghuan Noble is based on the Suzuki Alto platform. The car went on sale in some European countries a year later with prices ranging between $13,000 and $17,000, according to carscoops.com. Interestingly, the Shuanghuan Noble was promoted with the motto “Smarter than the rest,” which seems like the importer was trying to mock Smart. Daimler sued Shuanghuan, but in 2009, a Greek court ruled in favor of the Noble.
The Noble wasn't the first attempt by a Chinese company to make a copy of the Smart and then try and sell it in Europe. In 2006, Daimler sued CMEC, which was making an electric copy of the Smart, which was even called the “City Smart” (because it had a low speed and was only allowed to be driven in cities), according to DW.com. Daimler and CMEC settled out of court, and CMEC didn’t proceed with making the car, according to Forbes.
The first-generation Huanghai Plutus, which was made between 2007 and 2012, is another example of a copied design from the same company that made the Lexus RX copy that we’ve discussed earlier. From first sight, you can see that it looks like a first-gen Chevrolet Colorado (or its twin, the GMC Convoy), although, while the Colorado is offered only as a pickup, the Plutus also comes as an SUV, which doesn’t cancel its resemblance to the Chevy.
According to leblogauto.com, the Huanghai Plutus is offered with either a 2-liter gasoline or a 2.8-liter diesel engine. At a price of around $10,000, it looks like a lot of car for the money. Here’s an even more interesting part. We said earlier that it’s the first-gen Huanghai Plutus. In 2012, Huanghai announced a new Plutus, but this time, instead of copying the Chevy, they drew a lot of inspiration from Mercedes, so the front looks exactly like the one on the W164 Mercedes ML. (Interestingly enough, Mercedes announced their own pickup truck, the X-Class in 2017). According to ChinaAutoWeb, the new Huanghai Plutus has three engine choices: a 2.4-liter diesel (from Mitsubishi) and two diesel engines with a capacity of 3.2 liters and 2.8 liters. The prices for the new Plutus range from $13,000 to $21,000.
The cars whose rears you see in the picture above are the Shuanghuan CEO (also known as "SCEO") and the BMW X5. We don’t have to tell you which picture depicts which car because it’s obvious, but BMW didn’t find it so obvious, which is why they sued Shuanghuan. In Germany, BMW won their lawsuit against importer China Automobile Deutschland GmbH. The court banned further imports of the car in Germany and ordered the destruction of the vehicles it still had in stock. However, later that same year, a court in Italy ruled in favor of Martin Motors, another European importer of the Shuanghuan CEO, according to autonews.com.
The car does indeed look like a BMW X5 from the rear and from the side, even though it might not be an exact copy, but the front looks like the Honda CR-V. Car and Driver described it best when they said, “Altogether, the CEO is a curious but not entirely unattractive blend of generic Japanese and BMW styling.” However, while it might look like a BMW, it certainly doesn't drive like one because underneath, it packs a 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine that develops 123 horsepower, which doesn’t create any excitement when driving a car that weighs 4,000 pounds.
Related: This Bonkers SUV From BMW Packs A V12 From A McLaren F1
For a Chinese copy, the Haima 2 looks very good, and some outlets that tested it, such as Top Gear Philippines, praised the ride quality and the overall looks of the car. However, we're not discussing how good Chinese cars are but rather how much they resemble vehicles built by more established companies. The Haima 2 does look like a Mazda 2, and other cars made by Haima also look like their Mazda counterparts and even follow similar nomenclature.
Haima didn’t pick Mazda randomly but rather followed up on their “legacy.” Haima was founded in 1992 as a joint venture between the provincial government of Hainan and Mazda to make Mazda cars for sale in China, but in 2006, the FAW Group bought out Mazda, and Haima continued on its own, still drawing inspiration (apparently a lot of it) from their former Japanese partners. The Haima 2 looks a bit more rugged than the Mazda 2. It's powered by either a 1.3-liter or a 1.5-liter engine mated either to a five-speed manual or to a six-speed automatic gearbox. On the interior, it steps away from Mazda, and in some ways, it’s even more practical and has more room, according to Top Gear Philippines.
The Lithia was a concept presented by CH-Auto Lithia back in 2012. It clearly draws inspiration from the Audi R8, although it has an original and a rather stylish front and rear. The car didn’t make it into production and was presented to showcase CH-Auto’s technology. CH-Auto is a Beijing-based design studio that helps carmakers with developing cars from design to engineering. According to Autblog.com, the chief of design at CH-Auto is Dan Darancou, who worked at GM and participated in designing cars like the Buick Invicta Concept and the SEMA Chevrolet Camaro Black. So, Mr. Darancou should’ve known better than to copy Western designs, but it seems he didn’t. Before the Lithia was presented, CH-Auto showed the Aculeus concept car that had blended styling elements from the Ferrari 599 GTO and Aston Martin. After the Aculeus and the Lithia, CH-Auto presented the Event Concept at the 2014 Beijing Auto Show. The Event, which borrows the form of the Bugatti Veyron but looks much more original than CH-Auto’s previous concepts, was the car that eventually made it into production. The car went on sale in 2018 under the name "Qiantu K50." It's powered by two electric motors that together develop 376 hp and has a range of 365 kilometers (227 miles).
Related: 10 Reasons Why We Love The Audi R8
The team at Lifan Group first made the Lifan 320 and presented it in 2008. The Lifan 320 was a copy of the Mini Cooper, though some had slightly different headlights. Five years later, probably after seeing that they weren’t in any sort of trouble, they face-lifted it and presented the Lifan 330, which even more resembled the Mini Cooper. They even copied the dashboard, although instead of the traditional speedometer placed in the middle, they put the digital speedometer in the middle of the tachometer gauge, but the stereo was still round. According to ChinaAutoWeb.com, the Lifan 330 came in three configurations: standard, luxury, and flagship, with prices between $6,300 and $7,000. All three configurations come with a 1.3-liter engine and a 5-speed manual gearbox.
It’s unlikely that the Lifan 330 managed to leave a mark on the pages of automotive history aside from its resemblance to the Mini Cooper. The previous model, the 320, had very poor sales, with just a few thousand units sold, according to chinaautoweb.com. The 320 was also considered one of the least safe cars in the world, scoring zero stars in the Latin NCAP. And the 330 probably wasn’t much better, as it shared the same platform and the same structures as the previous car, although it had some more safety equipment as standard, according to autoblog.com.uy.
Marnus Moolman is a young aspiring automotive writer from South Africa who is making a name for himself, despite his young age. Currently, he is studying to obtain a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting to pursue his lifetime dream of running his own automotive detailing establishment.