Clone Country: Jinbei of China Copies Acura MDX

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Just when you thought the Chinese might have stopped cloning cars and have started to come up with designs on their own, a clone pops up! The latest to the list of such clones is Jinbei Diazi Tjatse! You sure need a lot of practice to say that correctly.

The Jinbei is a sub-brand of Brilliance automobiles who are the joint venture partners of BMW in China. They have a mix of some very good original & pirated designs in their product portfolio and the Diazi Tjatse is just an addition to that list, being a blatant copy of Acura MDX.

The Diazi Tjatse will be powered by a 1.5 turbocharged engine with 150hp and 220nm, mated to a six-speed manual transmission sending power to the front wheels. It will be launched in the Chinese car market in November 2016. Price will start around 100,000 yuan (PKR 15.33 lac) and will go up to 140,000 yuan (PKR 21.47 lac).

For the sake of comparison the price of the Acura MDX in China starts from 739,000 yuan (PKR 1.13 Crore) and goes up to at 795,000 yuan (PKR 1.22 Crore). The only engine offered with the MDX is a 3.5 V6 with 293hp, mated to a six-speed automatic transmission.

The Jinbei Diazi Tjatse is actually a mix of two generations of the Acura MDX, while they have copied the 3^rd generation Acura MDX on the exterior, the interior is a replica of the 2^nd generation Acura MDX, and it doesn’t end here as Jinbei have managed to copy the color palette as well.

Jinbei used to make only minivans and other small commercial vehicles, but they have been moving into passenger cars since a few years. Diazi Tjatse is their largest and most expensive car so far.

This practice of copying an expensive luxury car has been very successful in China. Similar examples of Landwind X7 (Range Rover Evoque clone) and the Zotye SR9 (Porche Macan replica) prove that a clone with one third the price of actual car bearing exactly the same looks is the recipe to success!