The Chinese brand Ora from manufacturer Great Wall made the headlines in a special way earlier this year by pulling the curtain on a prototype of the Punk Cat, an electric car whose design is clearly inspired by that of the Volkswagen Beetle. That Punk Cat just hit the market and AutoWeek can show you the first pictures of that production-ready Ora Punk Cat.
Like Wey, Ora is a sub-brand of Great Wall that will make the crossing to Europe in 2022. That Great Wall likes crazy model names is proven with both brands. Wey sells SUVs in China with names like Mocca and Latte and brings the former to our part of the world as Coffee 01. Ora sells EVs in China with a strong retro design that gives it names like Black Cat, White Cat and Good Cat. Die Goede Kat is an electric hatchback that comes to Europe as 02 Cat, but it doesn’t stop there. Great Wall also brings a four-door with a strongly sloping roofline to Europe, called Lightning Cat in its home country, which it markets here as 03 Cat. In the form of the Punk Cat, Ora showed an EV clearly inspired by the Volkswagen Beetle earlier this year, of which we now have the final production version in view.
Ora Punk Cat
However, the Punk Cat will not go into production completely unchanged, possibly to prevent Volkswagen from starting legal proceedings against the brand. However, not much has changed. For the production version of the Punk Cat, Ora has replaced the round headlights of the prototype with oval and flattened units at the bottom and the oval light units also give way to flattened ones at the rear. In the center of the production-ready buttocks we find a slightly out-of-the-ordinary rear spoiler, possibly fitted to improve the car’s aerodynamics. Despite the changes, the Punk Cat with its overall line, classic bumpers, convex front cover, large round front and rear screens and the ventilation grilles that are now placed between the windscreen and front cover still strongly reminds of the Beetle.
Ora Punk Cat
AutoWeek can immediately release the first specifications of the production-ready Punk Cat. The car will be 4.4 meters long, has a wheelbase of 2.75 meters and will have a 171 hp electric motor. The top speed of the Ora weighing about 1,700 kilograms is limited to 155 km/h. Is the Punk Cat coming to Europe? That is certainly not inconceivable. Ora is bringing more retro guys to Europe and this Punk Cat, which could well be called 04 Cat, would of course fit in perfectly.
Would the Punk Cat be a welcome addition to the range of electric models in the Netherlands? We are curious if Ora’s cheerfully designed but perhaps not too original new electric rascal is to your taste!
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl