Hardly a day goes by without the presentation of a brand new Chinese car. More and more brands from the country are also daring to enter the European market. While it looks really promising these days, it has not been a guaranteed success in the past. Landwind proved that.
Over the years we have been treated by the Chinese in the car sector. At the beginning of this century the car brands sprang up like mushrooms in China and the first steps were quite debatable. European brands were seen as the great example and this was evident from the enormous flow of shameless copies that went to the Chinese showrooms. From the BMW X5 to the Toyota Aygo; no established brand escaped the Chinese copier. Apart from laughing at whether our eyebrows are frowning, we Europeans had little else to do with it.
X6
That was different with the Landwind brand. That had also looked closely at examples from across the border and dared to try it with its Opel Frontera clone in Europe. The X6 was the car that started it all for Landwind and it also ended up here through the specially set up European branch. It is not entirely correct that we are talking about a clone, because Landwind neatly bought the base of the Rodeo for the X6 from Isuzu (known to us as Opel’s Frontera). It provided the car with some characteristics of its own, such as the modified nose, and started production of the device in Nanchang in the late 1990s. In terms of motorization, there was no immediate reason to worry, because Landwind also knocked on the door of Isuzu and Mitsubishi.
All in all, it was not immediately a recipe for misery and with an attractive price, the X6 could well become an interesting newcomer in Europe. The design and technology may not have been completely at home in the twentieth century, but driving a fat SUV for next to nothing is of course interesting. It is therefore not surprising that it initially started out quite well here. Via an importer in Brabant, who picked up the cars in Germany and subsequently registered them here, they ended up here on the road. There was quite a bit of interest initially, until the ADAC came up with an extremely shocking crash test video. The X6 had hit a thick chunk of German concrete and turned out to live up to its robust appearance. Dangerous, that was the verdict.
CV9
As cautiously hopeful as it started, interest in the new Chinese brand collapsed so quickly again. However, that did not stop the Chinese from attempting to repair image damage and storm our continent with a new model. In 2009 Landwind returned to Europe after a short absence and this time it was the brand new CV9 that the brand tried. An MPV with a completely self-designed carriage. In this case, it may be true that ‘better well stolen than badly conceived’, because it was not a handsome. However, the first impression was by no means bad. He did what he had to do and it was actually only in terms of finish (with nauseating plasticizers) and choice of materials that this was a dirt cheap Chinese product. You already drove a CV9 from just under € 15,000.
In the field of security, the Chinese had clearly learned from their previous miss. The CV9 was constructed with stronger steel and, in crash tests, was not the wheeled coffin that the X6 was. Although the CV9 received only two stars in the Euro NCAP impact test, this was also partly due to the fact that side airbags were optional and therefore not applicable to the impact test. In terms of structural integrity, it was all a lot better than before. However, it was unable to remove Landwind’s previous damage in Europe. Less than 20 of the CV9 were sold here and it did not stop there.
Aiways
Although the name Landwind disappeared in the European history books after the CV9, it (in a sense) nevertheless returns. This time it’s Aiways’ turn. The Chinese brand, which is only a few years old, has a 50 percent interest in Jiangling Motor Holding, the joint venture behind Landwind. The same group that served us the X6 and CV9 at the time, will try again in Europe. The Aiways models, all fully electric, with a sleek design and with promising technology on board, could do a lot better. In any case, the signs are good. Time will tell if the Chinese finally get a foothold with the U5, the first car to come this way.
Until then, we look back only once more at the high-profile crash test of the Landwind X6, because that is a piece of car history that we can not just forget.