HongQi announces new photochopped Lincoln MKT crossover!

Posted Apr 19th 2008 5:33PM by Sam Abuelsamid
Filed under: China, Crossovers/CUVs, Lincoln

How brazen can you get? At least most of the Chinese ~~auto-cloners~~ automakers create their own renderings of the cars they are copying. HongQi, a "premium" brand produced by First Auto Works in China simply grabbed a couple of press shots of the Lincoln MKT concept from the Ford Media site and starting 'chopping. Regardless of what you might think of Lincoln's new styling direction (generally, we like it), the Chinese version is not easy on the eyes. You would think with three months to work on it since the Lincoln pics appeared they could find someone to do a more professional-looking job. The question is, will FAW get their version on the road before the production version of the MKT lands at Lincoln dealers in 2009?

Gallery: Detroit 2008: Lincoln MKT Concept - Live Reveal

Gallery: Lincoln MKT Concept

[Source: China Car Times]

Tags: china, china mobile, ChinaMobile, chinese, chinese car, chinese clones, ChineseCar, ChineseClones, faw, first auto works, first-automobile-works, FirstAutoWorks, hongqi, lincoln-mkt, lincoln-mkt-clone

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)

Highest Ranked

jake @ Apr 19th 2008 1:49PM

Are you sure this is sourced from the manufacturer? Sometimes these chinese websites source photos from fan forums or make their own chops. I've seen this happen with phone releases where Chinese websites sourced from fan forums and I've also seen where they make their own chops. Doesn't help that Chinacartimes doesn't mention where they got the photo.

Highest Ranked

agree @ Apr 19th 2008 5:57PM

Agree, FAW hasn't even confirmed anything. This is obviously a photoshop, jesus christ just look at the background and the colour.

Highest Ranked

jake @ Apr 19th 2008 9:40PM

I followed the link to goche.sohu.com shown in the watermark and the article talks as if it's got an exclusive look at the vehicle & describes the features shown in the photochop. But I know a chinese site that said they had "exclusive photos" of a prototype phone turned out to have found the photos on a fan forum and also another incident where they made a photochop themselves. (anyone remember the meizu m8 copyright infringement incident on engadget & gizmodo, where they traced the photo back to the source and found it was a fan photoshop?)

There's a link to a video that shows a concept SUV that looks different than this one but also looks to be a HongQi:
http://auto.sohu.com/20080414/n256293597.shtml
Screenshot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25319997@N08/2426042209/

Link to original article:
http://auto.sohu.com/20080418/n256365767.shtml

We'll see when they actually unveil the concept at the 08 Beijing auto show.

Highest Ranked

spacegravity4me @ Apr 19th 2008 10:20PM

So what you are saying is that the magazines that cover the rip offs are ripping off the rip offs themselves???

Neutral

jake @ Apr 20th 2008 4:02PM

@spacegravity4me
Yes, that is basically exactly what I'm saying. A lot of these sites essentially make up news by releasing their own chops or taking them from fan forums. Another possibility is that they got glimpse of the concept and decided to make their own chop showcasing what they saw (this seems to be more logical). Or I can be completely wrong and these chops WERE done by HongQi, but given the evidence (or lack thereof), I kind of doubt that. But lots of Chinese websites are unreliable, and lots of them have tons of spyware/viruses too. That's just the sad truth.
And as always, we'll find out when they actually show the concept at the auto show, which is going on right now if I'm correct, starting from the 20th to the 28th.

Neutral

Polence1 @ Apr 20th 2008 5:07PM

here is the link to the real pics at the show.
http://picture.auto.sohu.com/@picture_f1227655.html#slide

Neutral

klitorisaurus @ Apr 19th 2008 1:50PM

Looks like a RR Phantom was also harmed in the making of this photo.

Neutral

Seoultrain @ Apr 19th 2008 6:03PM

The last-gen Infiniti FX didn't escape unscathed, as well.

Neutral

Chi Wong @ Apr 19th 2008 7:16PM

I think you're right.

Neutral

John Starnes @ Apr 19th 2008 3:17PM

"HongQi"....pronounced as "honky"? That might limit their market a tad.

Neutral

Harrison @ Apr 19th 2008 7:04PM

No.

More of a Hong-Chi with stress on the o part.

Lowest Ranked

k.w.a @ Apr 19th 2008 5:50PM

OMG the HongQi looks BETTER! i was about to praise Lincoln for smoothing out the rough edges on their concept 'til i found out it wasn't even a lincoln!
FoMoCo should start taking photochops into consideration

Neutral

nissanfreak87 @ Apr 19th 2008 6:02PM

are you insane?

Neutral

Stuka @ Apr 19th 2008 6:27PM

You can't be serious...

Neutral

k.w.a @ Apr 19th 2008 6:36PM

the front is an obvious rip-off of the Rolls Royce, but do you really think Lincoln's grille looks good?
i know it's blasphemy to give a compliment to a chinese automaker,(especially on this site) but i think the fake Rolls royce grille looks better than that huge animal-eating grille on the real one.

If it weren't an obvious rip-off of Rolls Royce, would you really think Lincoln's grille looked better?

Neutral

nissanfreak87 @ Apr 20th 2008 5:47AM

ummmm, yeah, at least it flows with the rest of the car

Highly Ranked

Seoultrain @ Apr 19th 2008 6:04PM

I wonder if all those vents are functional. You gotta cool that headlight fluid, I guess :)

Neutral

MoonRover @ Apr 19th 2008 6:46PM

Don't want your Honkie getting hot around the lights.....

Neutral

Austin @ Apr 19th 2008 6:27PM

I hate the chinese, can we just boycott the olympics!!!

Neutral

Harrison @ Apr 19th 2008 7:05PM

No.

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