I was reading a post on the HAMB a while back about Chinese rip off trucks that got pulled because the OT police put the hammer down. Over the weekend I had a little time and surfed the net about the subject and found a few sites talking about how the Chinese are almost doing direct copies of US vehicles.

Fake In China: An F150 By Another Name | The Truth About Cars



I did a little more surfing and found that this isn't new for the Chinese to rip off US car makers. They seemed to start doing this imediatly after the start of People's Republic of China was launched in 1949. I found one article that I thought was interesting to us Bonus Built guys. If you look closely you can see slight differences, two piece windshield, extra running light next to the headlights, horizontal sliding side windows, extra grill bars long with slightly different hood trim.

 

C'mon Bob, did you write that part about "the better of the two styles"?!

They did the same thing with Jeep Cherokees in the early '90's. The body panels were supposedly made out of old cans and other scrap steel. They looked halfway decent but supposedly fell apart on the first bumpy road.

 

They have even went as far as making nike sneakers in the nike sneaker factory after hours and selling them as knock offs.

 

So even Communist China likes the Monkey face over the manure spreader??

 

The irony to all this is that American (and I am sure other countries) companies have given the technology and tooling to mass-produce many non-Chinese products to China to save on production labor costs here in the US. It would take a very naive person to believe that China would not make full use of this "windfall". At least when they did it in the early years they actually had to do a little reverse-engineering...today we hand it to them on a silver platter!

Want to read a REAL horror story, do some research on the new San Francisco Bay Bridge...see who won the contract for the construction and then see who the US paid to build the steel plant to make the materials.

 

Many years ago I saw a Chinese truck that was a knock off of American built late '30s vintage Chevrolet. The truck had an engine that looked identical to the Chevy stove bolt. At the time it struck me as to how crude, fit and finish it was.
Guys and girls, the new China will soon become what Japan was in the '60s. After the war, Japan produced junk and then they learned to build quality. And the workers work cheaply.

 

I don't think so Ray, the Chinese mentality is very different.

 

"Article by April Phule"
pretty funny

 

I just saw on an auto blog where the Volvo? dealers inflated their sales numbers in 2011 by 12,000 units to appease the Party Officials - then they had to under report 2012 figures - That caused the Gubment to invent a new bureau to watch for such nefarious activities

 

I was just thinking this morning, "What will Bob pull today?"

Had me going for a bit until I remember what today is. Great job, Bob!!

 

Bob and his dam Internet ink!!! got to love the first day of April

 

no april fools joke guys. This is real

 

You got me Bob.... I am the fool (Phule).... I thought , Wow, Bob must love that article, since it said 48-50 are more handsome.... I didn't notice the writers name until now afteI re-read it after I saw Panel mans comment...

 

didn't the author of the "article" give it away instantly - April Phule

 

Ok that might not be real, but the f150 is.