In the late 1970s, aged five, I went into the family greengrocer in Belfast with my mother. She complimented the grocer on his new car, parked outside, and asked what it was. ‘It’s a Moskvitch,’ I interjected unprompted, the Russian brand having made a brief and unsuccessful appearance in the UK.
Last year, aged 50 and by now supposedly a motoring journalist, I was texted a picture of a car by a good friend and senior car industry executive who was on a research trip to China. It was so good I had to drive it, he said. But he didn’t name it, the badge was obscured, and I had to Google a lot of Chinese car makers rather than look like an idiot asking him what it was.
So why could five-year-old me name a Russian car, but 50-year-old me can’t recognise a Chinese one? Two reasons. First, a lot of new Chinese cars look remarkably alike, something that poses a real risk to their makers, as we’ll see. But also, while I write a lot about the transformative effect China is having on the car industry, I just don’t care that much about its individual models. I’d heard of the Xiaomi SU7, and in ‘Ultra’ trim it subsequently got our attention by taking the Nürburgring lap record for electric production cars from the Rimac Nevera with a 7min 4sec lap this summer. But back then I just didn’t care enough to play ‘spot the difference’ with its very similar-looking rivals.
