Photo: S.Baldauf/SB-Medien
No matter your personal preference in automotive luxury, there is no denying that the two biggest kahunas in this part of the car industry are, without a doubt, Rolls-Royce and Bentley.
The people in charge of a momentarily mysterious Chinese carmaker probably think the same, which is why the camouflaged vehicle in the adjacent photo gallery looks like a mix between a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a Bentley Mulsanne.
The spy photographers who were lucky enough to spot the prototype while testing in the coldest regions of Norther Sweden aren't sure what kind of car it is, but they are pretty adamant that it's definitely too short and too narrow to be a luxury brand model.
Geely used to build a Phantom copy called the Geely GE back in the day, a model which was rebranded as the Geely Emgrand GE between 2010 and 2014, when it went out of production. There is a good chance that this prototype is a Geely as well, especially since the carmaker is currently pushing for a global presence and the car was spotted in Europe.
That said, we're not so sure that BMW and Volkswagen, the owners of Rolls-Royce and Bentley, would be too happy with the production model running around on European roads and being available in European showrooms.
Despite having the potential to be banned from selling on Western markets, we think the Rolls/Bentley four-wheeled thingamajig our spy photogs captured on camera looks awesome.
We don't have any reference points apart from the approximate size of the two passengers, but it looks like it's about as long as a Volkswagen Passat, if not slightly shorter. This fact, along with its possible low price would make it kind of impossible for its customers to cross-shop it with a real Bentley or a Rolls. In other words, there's a pretty good chance that we will be seeing more of this funky Chinese clone in the following months.
UPDATE: As it happens, we were wrong in estimating this mashup to be of Chinese origin. The car is actually a short wheelbase version of an upcoming Russian luxury car called the Kortezh. Developed together with Porsche, of all carmakers, the model will also have an armored, long-wheelbase version that will carry Russian President Vladimir Putin and his bodyguards. It seems that the Chrysler 300C-like exterior was dropped in favor of something a little more British.
The spy photographers who were lucky enough to spot the prototype while testing in the coldest regions of Norther Sweden aren't sure what kind of car it is, but they are pretty adamant that it's definitely too short and too narrow to be a luxury brand model.
Geely used to build a Phantom copy called the Geely GE back in the day, a model which was rebranded as the Geely Emgrand GE between 2010 and 2014, when it went out of production. There is a good chance that this prototype is a Geely as well, especially since the carmaker is currently pushing for a global presence and the car was spotted in Europe.
That said, we're not so sure that BMW and Volkswagen, the owners of Rolls-Royce and Bentley, would be too happy with the production model running around on European roads and being available in European showrooms.
Despite having the potential to be banned from selling on Western markets, we think the Rolls/Bentley four-wheeled thingamajig our spy photogs captured on camera looks awesome.
We don't have any reference points apart from the approximate size of the two passengers, but it looks like it's about as long as a Volkswagen Passat, if not slightly shorter. This fact, along with its possible low price would make it kind of impossible for its customers to cross-shop it with a real Bentley or a Rolls. In other words, there's a pretty good chance that we will be seeing more of this funky Chinese clone in the following months.
UPDATE: As it happens, we were wrong in estimating this mashup to be of Chinese origin. The car is actually a short wheelbase version of an upcoming Russian luxury car called the Kortezh. Developed together with Porsche, of all carmakers, the model will also have an armored, long-wheelbase version that will carry Russian President Vladimir Putin and his bodyguards. It seems that the Chrysler 300C-like exterior was dropped in favor of something a little more British.
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