China is infamous for making copies of any tech-based products; it has also been accused of copying car designs. After making replicas of McLaren 570GT, Volkswagen Passat, MINI Cooper, Land Rover Discovery Sport among others, China is now selling a mix of Mahindra Thar and Mahindra Bolero. The look is inspired by Jeep Wrangler and the Land Rover SUV.
BAIC BJ40 Plus is an off-road vehicle, that is heavily loaded with features. The SUV looks like the Jeep Wrangler, and is Manufactured by a Beijing-based company BAIC, a Chinese state-owned enterprise and the holding company of several automobile and machine manufacturers.
Since these manufacturers are protected by the government, the original companies cannot do much when it comes to taking action against such copies.
From the side, the doors of the Chinese SUV look exactly the same as that of the Wrangler Jeep. The front and rear roofs can be disassembled and assembled back, providing various deformation combinations.
Apart from this, it has also copied the massively flared wheel arches like that of Thar, Wrangler, and Bolero. Like the Wrangler’s easy-to-fold windshield, the Chinese SUV’s windshield can be folded to give a clear view during shooting and hunting. Similar to Wrangler Jeep, it has options for a hardtop and a soft top.
The cabin layout is also similar to the Jeep Wrangler. The off-road car’s headlamp unit looks like old-generation headlamps from the Land Rover SUV.
The petrol version of the car is being sold in Pakistan at present. A video of the newly-launched SUV shows that it is powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged petrol engine and is capable of generating maximum power of 218 Bhp.
From the front, it resembles Mahindra Bolaro due to its five-hole light chrome-plated front grille, which givea an “off-road sense”, according to the company website.
The car provides a completely luxurious experience with a 10-inch central control screen which has multiple functions, including 1280X480 high-resolution, capacitive touch, convenient operation, and sensitive response. It also supports different languages. Its 12.3-inch dashboard is equipped with a full-color liquid crystal instrument and LED light source.
Although Beijing Automotive Group Ltd (BAIC) claims to be a leading automobile manufacturer, it has been widely criticized for copying vehicle designs from popular brands around the world.
Jaguar Land Rover had won a long-standing court case against the company in 2019 and prevented it from selling the copied version of the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque. A district court in China had found that Jiangling’s Landwind X7 to be very similar to the Range Rover Evoque.
The Chinese manufacturer had later launched a tweaked version of the same vehicle and continued selling the same in the domestic market without any problem.
In China, the doppelganger is priced at the equivalent of around GBP 14,000 (about Rs 12.74 lakh) – significantly less than the GBP 40,000-plus (approximately Rs 36.40 lakh) of the locally-produced Evoque, as per automobile websites.
