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BAIC in Love with Pininfarina, Baby Saab Coming

We all know how, earlier this year, the Chinese from BAIC made the deal of a lifetime by acquiring some of the old platforms and technologies used by Swedish manufacturer Saab to manufacture the previous generations of the 9-5 and 9-3 models.

That deal, good as it was, still doesn't mean that BAIC can build a car by using the tech. To make a car, you need more than a platform and an assembly line; you need know-how, talent and, above all, originality.

BAIC thought things through all year long and now it seems to have found the company meeting all of the above criteria: Pininfarina. The Italians are currently being pinched to see how they react to the idea of designing cars for BAIC.

But those are not all the plans BAIC has for the Italian design house. The Chinese like to buy, and apparently they plan on buying Pininfarina. The company, which failed to catch its breath the past years, is currently for sale and, as it appears, the biggest interest in buying it comes from Asia.

"I just came back from Italy last week and have communicated with the technical staff at Pininfarina about the design proposal of the Saab models,"
an unnamed BAIC executive was quoted as saying by Gasgoo.

"Pininfarina is the most successful overseas car design company in China. BAIC has been collaborating with it on development of models based on the Saab technology and will display an all-new concept car with the Saab genes at next year's Shanghai auto show, while Pininfarina will be responsible for the contour design of the car."
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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