Spy Shots: Dongfeng-Fengshen working on new small sedan
The very first spy shots from a new Dongfeng-Fenshen sedan. ‘Fengshen‘ is a Dongfeng brand-name selling cars based on various vehicles from the various joint ventures Dongfeng has with foreign auto makers. The Fengshen A60 for example is based on the old Dongfeng-Nissan Sylphy and the Fengshen S30/H20 is based on the old Dongfeng-Peugeot 307. Coming next is a city-SUV based on the Dongfeng-Nissan Qashqai. Back now to this new A0-class sedan.
It screams Peugeot yet again, especially from the back. Most likely donor seems to be the Peugeot 307 sedan, albeit slightly stretched. Chinese media say the new A0 will be positioned between the A30 and the A60, powered by a 1.3 or 1.4 liter engine. We also hear Dongfeng made another deal with PSA to use the platform from the Citroen C5 for a future top-of-the-line Fengshen sedan.
Sadly, we have to conclude that this Fengshen-brand is going nowhere. Their development costs are very cheap indeed but all their cars are based on old or existing platforms from two very different auto makerts; PSA and Nissan. This means parts cannot be shared at all which will hurt hard in the future. Furthermore, Chinese car buyers are by now well aware of this kinda ‘brands’ and rather save a bit more yuan to buy the real thing. It is all hard to understand, after all those very fat joint-venture years Dongfeng must have saved enough money to develop at least one car of its own.
Pics via: Suhu.com.
