Chinese F-150 Knockoff At Least Does Diesel

By Justin Banner - April 23, 2014

A Chinese manufacturer looking to get into the market for the first time will reverse engineer and make a copy of a successful item. It’s very rare to not only make a blatant copy but admit that it does. During the Beijing Auto Show, Kawei Auto not only brought out a new K1 pickup truck but also the Ford F150 it copied it from and even compared the two. Let’s look closer at the Knockoff-150.

I had to read through some ok-ish English on China Car News to understand what was going on. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading. I have never heard of a knockoff or replica from China being described as such and being proud of it.

Normally, even these companies shun the idea that their products are clones, but Kawei Auto didn’t. They even brought a Ford F150 Raptor so that they could show off the similarities!

China Car News describes the look of the K1 as a higher quality truck, stating that most smaller Chinese automakers cars “look like they can fall apart when you look at them.” However, the K1 looked very solid and even featured leather seats.

The K1 comes with either a 3.2L six cylinder diesel or a Mitsubishi-derived 2.4L four cylinder with a 5-speed manual transmission powering the rear wheels. You won’t be going any were in any type of hurry in the K1, top speed is 130 KPH for the diesel and 145 KPH for the gas engine. While we have to admit the lure of a diesel powered, manual F150 is awesome the fact that it’s a knockoff really dampens that idea.