Non-Chinese Cars That Are Actually Copies

Interestingly enough, these companies that resorted to copying others’ designs are also Asian, the only difference being they are from Korea and Japan. It’s no secret that many Japanese cars from the 1960s and 1970s bore more than a little resemblance to models made by established Western brands, but this trend actually continued well into the 1990s.

Just take the second-generation Nissan Micra, the K11 model manufactured between 1992 and 2002. Its design owes everything to the classic Austin Mini, but wrapped in more modern looking sheet metal.

Sure, its front fascia may not immediately strike you as Mini-like, but take a closer look at the shape of its greenhouse in relation to the rest of the body and the similarity will become more apparent. The three-door version of the K11 Micra is more like the Mini, but the five-door still retains the same look.

The third-gen Lexus LS, the XF30 made between 2000 and 2006 was a direct ripoff of the Mercedes-Benz W140, the Three Pointed Star’s flagship model from a decade prior. The front and rear fascias looked like that of more modern Mercs, but from the side, the shape of the greenhouse was a dead giveaway as to where Lexus designers got their inspiration.

In fact, the two previous generations of LS were also inspired by German flagship sedans, only in their case, they were not only copies of cars designed in Stuttgart. Both looked like a mishmash between Mercedes-Benz and BMW designs, yet the result looked considerably more nondescript - all three first generations of Lexus LS look like cars from the Grand Theft Auto gaming franchise, where none of the cars are officially licensed and they take cues from various brands and mix them around (often with amusing results).

We leave Japan and head over to Korea where we have another Mercedes lookalike, the Kia Opirus (also marketed as the Amanti), that was on sale from 2003 to 2010. Its face owes everything to the second-gen Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the W210, while its rear is clearly similar to that of a mid 2000s Lincoln Town Car.

SsangYong Chairman, any model year, is another big, plush sedan that’s inspired by old Mercedes models (a mix of W140, W220 and W221). In this case, the similarity is more than just skin deep, because the first-gen Chairman was built atop the Mercedes W124 platform that underpinned the mid-1990s E-Class.

The Asia Motors Rocsta, especially the earlier model manufactured from 1989 until the mid 1990s, is essentially a smaller version of the Jeep Wrangler. It’s so similar that the only real visual difference is its size. Hop aboard and the fact that it’s an entirely different vehicle, although since 1990s Jeeps had lackluster, poor quality interiors, the Korean off-roader was probably better off going its own way.

Now that the Rocsta is no longer in production, there is little Jeep could do to make things right in a courtroom (especially since it was never officially sold in the U.S). Yet there’s still a miniature Wrangler clone that’s still in production, the Roxor made by Mahindra, in India.

Jeep did take Mahindra to court over it, especially after Roxor kits started to be imported in order to be assembled Stateside. No verdict has yet been given, but there’s a very high likelihood that Jeep’s parent company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, will win this lawsuit. Had Mahindra not chosen to ship the kits for assembly on U.S. soil, Fiat Chrysler would not have sued.