You have to give it up to Chengfeng Chairman Li Jianxin. Despite a command of English that could be charitably described as elementary, he powered through a presentation extolling the virtues of his Chinese company, which made its second-straight appearance at Detroit.
Of course, it was hard to know exactly what those virtues were, because about all we could understand from his speech is they want to launch two new vehicles a year and they want to build cars with technology, safety and good fuel consumption. Sounds like a plan.
The automaker brought two new vehicles to this year's show, the Liebao CS7 (red car) and the Kylin, both five-door crossover-type vehicles, the CS7 featuring all-wheel-drive. Both vehicles feature a 1.8-liter engine sourced by Mitsubishi, Chengfeng's partner in China.
After a quick look at both inside and out, it was readily apparent that they are not ready for U.S. prime time. Chairman Li reiterated the company's desire to export vehicles to the U.S. market by 2009 -- a goal he set at last year's show. Unless they have a magic car in the pipeline they're holding back on the world, we'd have to say 2009 is a tad unrealistic. Their cars look to be a generation or two away before they'd be ready to take on U.S. crash and emissions regulations. Stranger things have happened, however.
Like other Chinese automakers, Chengfeng is also making noise about assembling cars here, another long shot in the short term especially. Although by the way Ficano fawned over the company during the press conference, we'd bet he'd be able to find a tax-free plot of land with Chengfeng's name on it in a flash.
One thing for Chengfeng and other Chinese automakers to consider - hiring a U.S.-based press firm. This year's press release was as brutal and hilarious as last year's was -- not exactly the best way to be taken seriously. - By Mike Floyd