AutoCultureIndia

China notoriously lacks on copyright issues. The country is known for being a heaven for bootleg goods. Countless companies outside of China have tried to sue counterfeiters operating within its borders to no avail. But recently Chinese courts have made a landmark judgment regarding copyright infringement. Jaguar From Land Rover sued local Chinese car maker Land Wind over their design for the X7, a blatant ripoff of the Range Rover Evoque.

Look at that knockoff!!! They didn’t even change anything. It is hilarious, it might be funny to see how blatantly Land Wind ripped off Land Rover, but the judgment in this case could change the Chinese car market and maybe even the entire car world forever. China is so good at making knockoffs that they even have a name for it “Shan Zhai”. “Shan Zhai” literally translates to mountain stronghold referring to a regional group of bandits who were beyond the reach of local authorities. Nowadays, Shan Zhai denotes a certain peasant innovation, people who can’t afford the latest technology. Taking matters into their own hands and making a product that might not work as good as the one it’s ripping off but it sure does fool people for at least a few minutes whether it’s Beats by Nani or Microsoft Windows. Whatever this atrocity is everyone has bought a knockoff at some point in their life sometimes they’re even better than the original like Oreos or Mr.Pibb, I’ve tried Hydrox its not very good. Oreos you win!! But most of the time everyone else knows it’s a knockoff. Dr.Becker is one thing but would you spend thousands of dollars on a Chinese knockoff car. I’m gonna show you some of the laziest copycat cars to come out of China and see how they stack up against the real thing. A manufacturer called BYD or “Build Your Dreams” came out with a small drop top coupe that looks very familiar. Here’s an Image.

The BYD S8 borrows its sleek styling and entire front end from the Mercedes CLK like if you saw that from the front it would definitely be mistaken for Mercedes. The only way you would know that out of bends is that if you walked around the back and saw that chunky ugly rear-end which something is a ripoff of an entirely different car. The Renault Megane, apparently they only sold seven of these before production ceased in 2010 which is good because it was nowhere close to being able to compete with a CLK unfortunately the front clip is the only thing BYD copied from Mercedes. The S8 was powered by a paltry 2 liter inline-4 but the car weighed 1587 Kg (3500 Pounds). Build Your Dreams more like Boo your dreams, this knockoff is officially no good the Lifan 320 is an obvious ripoff of a Mini Cooper. The base Mini puts out about 134 horsepower which isn’t bad for such a tiny car but this Chinese knockoff doesn’t even come close to that. The base level 320, I mean I say base level like there are other levels, puts out 88 horsepower. The 320 is sold not only in China but also in Russia where it’s called the Smiley but you’ll be anything but smiley when you drive this death-trap. It scored zero out of five stars in the latin NCAP safety rating and is known for being one of the least safe cars in the world today for sure. It looks almost exactly like a Mini Cooper but this knockoff is not only underpowered it’s also very deadly all are declare this knockoff no good.

Qiantu K50 Event is china’s first electric supercar and it’s actually pretty sick, sure it looks like a Bugatti, but it has close to 400 horsepower and can do 0 to 60 in 4.6 seconds!! Good job china, Plus it has this dragonflies badge. Dragonflies used to be my favourite animal, I didn’t know that bugs and animals were different. The K50 has a 230 mile range and costs 750,000 CNY which is about $112,000. This Chinese knockoff is certifiably good.

This is ridiculous, there are a number of reasons why China has so many knockoffs. The laws surrounding intellectual property and design copyright or lack of them are only part of the equation and in the 1980s China had massive economic reform and started allowing more foreign companies in to sell their wares within the communist state. More established foreign car manufacturers immediately started eating up market share and the only way that China could compete was to reverse-engineer. The more refined and higher quality foreign cars without the presence of copyright laws stopping them. Nowadays, you could find a copycat version of basically any popular car in China.

This run-of-the-mill SUV looks vaguely like a Honda CRV from the front and exactly like a bmw X5 from the back, so much that BMW filed a Lawsuit against Shuanghuan. Car and Driver actually test drove this CEO back in 2008 saying “Who thought driving a 4,000 pound SUV powered by a feeble 4 cylinder could be so much fun!!” And feeble it is…The 2.4 liter inline 4 pumps out a measly 123 horsepower and despite looking like an X5, the CEO’s design was actually based on a 2nd gen Mitsubishi Montero .The angry german guy hated the CEO so much that he felt he needed to blow it up. This knockoff is you guessed it “NICHT GUT”. I’m really bad at German you know!!

You wouldn’t get through this list without seeing a knockoff Jeep. The X424 is made by state-owned car manufacturer BAIC and it’s unmistakably a Jeep Wrangler from the outside. The powerplant in this thing is embarrassing. A new base model Jeep Wrangler has a 3.6 liter V8 that puts out 290 horsepower and 260 foot-pounds of torque. The X424 has a 2.4 liter inline 4 that makes a wimpy 143 horsepower and 217 foot-pounds of torque. No Rock Crawling and this boxy boy. This knockoff is no good, we’re being pretty hard on these knockoffs but in reality China is not the only country that’s guilty of ripping off other cars

U.S manufacturers are guilty as well. The Pontiac Fiero was designed to look like mid-engine European cars of the time people even mod them out to look like Ferrari F40. The Fiero is still very much its own car though. But another car like the Chrysler 300 looks too much like a Bentley for it to be accidental, and while we’re talking about Bentley, Ford got in some hot water with the British company recently, when they debuted the Lincoln Continental concept at the 2016 New York Auto Show immediately after the pictures were leaked. Bentley’s chief engineer Luc Donckerwolke posted a status on his Facebook page asking “Do you want us to send over the product tooling?” He’s not wrong to think that they’re ripping off Bentley it does look creasing. With Ford didn’t do much to put out the fire when they announced that the Continental GT would be sold in the US and China, the two biggest markets for Bentley. Plus both companies share the same name ‘Continental’ ,but that’s a whole other thing. So back to the Land Rover’s Land Wind lawsuit, the new land rover judgment could mean a tide change in Chinese copyright law. As China becomes a larger global power, one of the biggest in fact. They’ve realized they needed to become more diplomatic both politically and economically. In this case that meant appeasing Land Rover a company that does a lot of sales there. How could this change the world?? Well in the first ruling of its kind, the Beijing court ordered land to immediately stop production of the X7 and pay compensation to Jaguar Land Rover, This could be the start of a larger crack down on copycats. China is one of the world’s fastest-growing automotive markets and they might be aiming to make themselves more appealing to outside car companies who would feel better doing business knowing that a crummy ripoff isn’t gonna take sales from them without consequence. Let me know what is your favorite Chinese Knockoff cars were. ADIOS!!!