Chinese Carmakers Accelerate

Homegrown Chinese brands stole the show Saturday at the opening of the Beijing Auto Show, upstaging their bigger and better-known international counterparts with original designs and big ambitions. "A couple of years ago at the Beijing Auto Show, the (Chinese brands) were like children," said Malcolm Bricklin, a U.S. businessman looking to partner with a Chinese company to make cars for export to North America by the end of 2009. "Now they are road class, big time. Two years from now, forget about it." Sleek Chinese high-end sedans, hybrids, roomy SUVs, and convertibles in rainbow colors competed cheek by jowl with their foreign counterparts and in many cases drew the larger crowds. "You see some good ones, and you see some that make you scratch your head and wonder," said Philip Murtaugh, executive vice president of Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., or SAIC. The most remarkable thing, Murtaugh said, is that the knock-offs of U.S. and European vehicles that dominated the Chinese car industry five years ago are gone, replaced by original designs.

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