Photo: Stefan Baldauf / Guido ten Brink
Founded in 1984 through an alliance with Yamaha, the company responsible for the San Yuan received $30 million for its Taoyuan facility in Taiwan about 11 years ago. And even though these people bought a stand at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show, the concept in question leaves much to be desired.
First things first, it’s an odd contraption that tries to combine the aesthetics of a coupe with the high ground clearance of a crossover. But as opposed to small utility vehicles such as the Toyota C-HR and Suzuki Jimny, the San Yuan doesn’t have a proper styling direction that would make a designer proud.
Look at the logo, affixed to an Audi-esque front grille complemented by vents next to the LED headlamps and a curious-looking lip spoiler. It’s three rings crossed by a chrome strip, featuring backlighting to bring the point home. The yellow trim makes the badge look like three lemon slices impaled by a cocktail stick, and that’s just the start of everything that’s wrong with the San Yuan.
Now glance at the silver-and-red wheels with too many spokes for anyone’s liking. The center cap – presented as a black star with gold accents – is the definition of chintzy. Most embarrassing for the Taipei-based company is the braking system, which is a non-functional fake whichever way you look at it.
A concept it may be, but the panel gaps are horrible even by economy car standards. This lack of build quality is most apparent at the rear, and the underbody photograph further reveals that the exhaust tips aren’t connected to anything at all. As if that wasn’t shameful enough, there’s no visible axle for the rear wheels and San Yuan Design didn’t open the hood either.
Moving on to the interior of this freak of the automotive world, the dual-screen instrument cluster and infotainment system are a blatant copy of the MBUX from Mercedes-Benz. The third display, located on the center stack, is another idea borrowed from Audi. Even the red trim on the seats gives away how tight of a budget the team behind the San Yuan had, and this means we’re not going to see this concept head into series production.
The 6,000-rpm redline suggests a gasoline engine with a turbocharger could be the powerplant envisioned by the engineers while the two-pedal setup suggests an automatic transmission or a DCT. But as we’ve mentioned beforehand, we’re not keeping our hopes up for the real deal to come to fruition. Sorry, not sorry…
Look at the logo, affixed to an Audi-esque front grille complemented by vents next to the LED headlamps and a curious-looking lip spoiler. It’s three rings crossed by a chrome strip, featuring backlighting to bring the point home. The yellow trim makes the badge look like three lemon slices impaled by a cocktail stick, and that’s just the start of everything that’s wrong with the San Yuan.
Now glance at the silver-and-red wheels with too many spokes for anyone’s liking. The center cap – presented as a black star with gold accents – is the definition of chintzy. Most embarrassing for the Taipei-based company is the braking system, which is a non-functional fake whichever way you look at it.
A concept it may be, but the panel gaps are horrible even by economy car standards. This lack of build quality is most apparent at the rear, and the underbody photograph further reveals that the exhaust tips aren’t connected to anything at all. As if that wasn’t shameful enough, there’s no visible axle for the rear wheels and San Yuan Design didn’t open the hood either.
Moving on to the interior of this freak of the automotive world, the dual-screen instrument cluster and infotainment system are a blatant copy of the MBUX from Mercedes-Benz. The third display, located on the center stack, is another idea borrowed from Audi. Even the red trim on the seats gives away how tight of a budget the team behind the San Yuan had, and this means we’re not going to see this concept head into series production.
The 6,000-rpm redline suggests a gasoline engine with a turbocharger could be the powerplant envisioned by the engineers while the two-pedal setup suggests an automatic transmission or a DCT. But as we’ve mentioned beforehand, we’re not keeping our hopes up for the real deal to come to fruition. Sorry, not sorry…
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