Geely Phantom, but not by Rolls
Rolls-Royce is apparently consulting lawyers after the Chinese automaker Geely unveiled a new model that looks a lot like the Rolls-Royce Phantom. The GE (Geely Excellence) was launched a few days ago at the 2009 Shanghai motor show.
The GE reportedly includes features like an “oxygen bar” (air purifier and separate air conditioning, what with the pollution rates over there), cigar storage, fridge, all for just about USD$44,000 compared to $293,000 for the Phantom. Although the jury’s out on the engineering inside it, the fact that the ‘impostor’ looks a bit better than the Phantom (as far as big, ugly but expensive, rectangular cars go) probably makes things more vexing for Rolls.
This is not an isolated case; Brit newspaper the Telegraph also has a slideshow on this and other cases of ‘mistaken identity’ at the show including the Mini Cooper, Benz SmartCar, and Toyota Yaris.
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Why, in good God’s name, can’t they just come up with something on their own… And it’s not just this car, there’s CEO (or X5 look a-like), the Noble (a copy of Smart) and a few more that aren’t even worth mentioning.
The sad part is that they started importing them in Europe too, as if we didn’t already know how the originals looked like. It’s just sad.
Comment by Adrian — Apr 24th, 2009 @ 11:27am