China's Own Scion xB Clone

Toyota's Scion xB has been such a success story that you could only expect some sort of ripoff version to eventually hit the market. Well, Great Wall Motors, China's largest SUV producer has also gotten into the automobile business as well in recent years, and Great Wall's CoolBear sure looks an awful lot just like the Scion xB. In fact, both are powered by a 1.5 liter four cylinder engine to add to the awesome similarity of the two cars. You'd swear that Toyota helped Great Wall build this car. But, apparently Toyota sure didn't. Even worse, copyright or trademark infringement cases in China often go nowhere. Fiat attempted to sue Great Wall over their Peri model which has a more than coincidental similarity to the Fiat Panda, but lost their case in the Chinese courts. Toyota's luck will probably be no better either in the Chinese courts. Toyota will likely have to live with the Scion xB ripoff and just swallow their anger.

But, you have to hand it to the Chinese. They've created a functional and attractive enough automobile that it will likely sell well in the 80 countries that Great Wall exports to. In Australia for example, just one Great Wall SUV model holds about 4% of their market. Some Great Wall SUVs slip into the EU as commercial vehicles to avoid much stricter standards for consumer trucks. But, several Great Wall models have fully complied with strict EU automobile safety standards and are available for sale.

When a Chinese brand of automobiles goes up for sale, you can almost expect it to be a Great Wall brand, because Great Wall is in the best position of any Chinese automaker at this point to export worldwide.