8:08 am, April 22, 2023
It was over some sandwiches and assorted finger food that the plan was laid out.
The mighty IM Group had acquired the distribution rights to offer an unheard-of Chinese car brand to UK customers and it was going to make an impact.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? (The plan, not the buffet.) However, this meeting didn’t take place recently but in spring 2011.
It was one of the first cover features I was ever involved in for Car Dealer.
We had travelled up to IM’s then-offices and heard all about this Chinese brand – Great Wall – and the IM Group’s plans for it.
Industry veteran Paul Hegarty was the man charged with the role of disrupting the UK car industry, and it all sounded very interesting to me as a young, innocent twentysomething. Vol-au-vents might have been served; I can’t remember.
Great Wall was going to bring over a rather basic but bang-on-the-money pick-up called the Steed, as well as a supermini that looked surprisingly like a Toyota Yaris. Only the pick-up made the journey west, though.
As for dealers, Great Wall did have a reasonably sized network in the end under the circumstances. However, at the time of the decadent lunch, no dealers had been signed up.
But they would, we were promised, and all would agree to Great Wall’s ‘Customer Charter’.
Great Wall’s Steed disappeared from sale in the UK after falling foul of upcoming emissions regulations
This was a scheme that rewarded dealers based on customer reviews and how impressed buyers were by the level of service they’d received from that particular dealer.
It wasn’t just customer service that’d win over the sceptical British buying public either but that age-old thing of throwing free stuff at them.
The Great Walls would be packed with equipment other carmakers would charge extra for.
Ultimately, though, Great Wall wasn’t a success.
The Steed disappeared from sale in 2016 due to it falling foul of upcoming emissions regulations, and its demise took the brand with it.
Why am I telling you this? Well, it was interesting to think back to that lunch meeting now that Chinese brands are making major waves in the UK car market all these years later.
It’s fair to say that the Chinese powerhouse SAIC has done most of the ground work in turning Brits on to Chinese cars.
It owns MG, and the cars that wear the octagon-shaped badge have, let’s face it, very little to do with the MGs that went before them.
And while we’re being honest, I’d expect the vast majority of owners of ‘new’ MG cars know very little of the dainty British sports cars of years gone by.
Vol-au-vents: The finger food choice of James Batchelor
But it’s a name that resonates enough for people to take a look at the product offering. By using a British brand, SAIC has cleverly sold its wares to Brits.
Just over a decade on from that tentative start by Great Wall, the landscape has changed immensely.
MG has shown that cars from China can be accepted, but more than that, it’s the industry’s switch to electric that will be the Chinese brands’ major free pass to success.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the roll-out of electric cars is a great leveller.
Electric technology standardises cars to previously unseen levels, thanks to their shared platforms and off-the-shelf motors and batteries.
European legacy brands will have just their heritage to trade on in an age of uniform electric cars, and this is how the Chinese carmakers can really make their presence felt.
The onslaught by the Chinese has already begun. Aside from MG, Great Wall is having another go at wooing the Brits with its pure-electric Ora division and then there’s BYD.
Some of the biggest dealers are taking out franchises with these two newcomers. Privately, some have told me that they don’t expect large numbers of sales just yet, but there’s potential.
I for one am grabbing a vol-au-vent and watching it all unfold.
Pictured at top is the Ora Funky Cat
This column appears in the current edition of Car Dealer – issue 182 – along with news, reviews, interviews, features and much more! Read and download it for FREE here!
