China Just Knocked Off The Range Rover Evoque And Jaguar Land Rover Is Not Happy
Range Rover's Evoque crossover SUV has been one of the company's most popular offerings.
Suffice to say, the people at Jaguar Land Rover (Range Rover's parent company) were not happy when a Chinese car company unveiled a remarkably similar knock-off. Called the Landwind X7, the Evoque facsimile made its debut recently at the Guangzhou Auto Show in southern China.
Jaguar chief designer Ian Callum recently tweeted out these photos of the Landwind. The bemused design legend wryly points out the uncanny aesthetic similarities between the two.
News of the knockoff Evoque first leaked in April when Landwind reportedly patented a vehicle called the E32 that looks to be the predecessor to the production X7.
Jaguar Land Rover made it clear that once an investigation is complete, the company will "take whatever steps are appropriate to protect its intellectual property."
Land Wind, a joint venture between China's Changan Auto and Jiangling Motors, produces a series of SUVs sold predominantly for the Chinese domestic market. However, Landwind did make history in 2005 when it became the first Chinese automaker to export its vehicles to Europe. The 1989-'98 Isuzu Rodeo-based X6 was imported to the Netherlands for a short time, but didn't sell well, after news surfaced of the car's spectacularly poor showing at Germany's ADAC crash tests, scoring a 0 out of 5.
According to the sources, the X7 will be sold for 135,000 yuan, or roughly $22,000.
By contrast, the Range Rover Evoque sells for $80-109,000 at Chinese dealerships.