Geely is coming, Geely is coming!

Hot on the heals of my speculation on the Geely model that may be coming to the US Geely has announced the all new car that will be brought over, the 7151 CK. They are expecting to begin selling here in 2009. (perhaps late ’08 as an ’09)

The exterior of the Geely 7151 CK has a cobbled together, unfinishedness to it that, while not ugly is slightly off putting.

They claim that the car will be coming in under $10k and we all know that means a price in the 9 thousand range for if it were in the 8 grand range they’d have said, “under $9k”. This means the car should be the lowest priced offering in the compact segment, unfortunately for Geely by ’09 that already competitive segment will be even more crowded.
The interior is clean with a simple utilitarian dash layout, which is a good thing. Though I wonder both where the CD slot is and if that big LCD looking screen could be any lower.

Right now the class is lead by the Chevy Aveo, and includes the Scion xA and the platform sharing Kia Rio and Hyundai Accent. A quick comparison of the base numbers shows that the 7151 CK offers nothing but a price advantage, but no much of one.


That list is a comparison of cars in the segment at this time, however the Aveo will be all new in ’07 and by ’09 the field will have grown with the addition of 3 new models. Here’s a look at the cars the 7151 CK will be going up against.

2007 Toyota Yaris Sedan
2007 Toyota Yaris "Liftback"
Scion xA

Nissan Tiida, concept car for the 2007/8 Versa.
2006 Kia Rio
2007 Honda Fit
2007 Chevy Aveo
2006 Hyundai Accent

Geely is going to be entering what seem to be shark infested waters with their 7151 CK in 2009 and I don’t know if a few grand in savings will be enough to really move much iron. When the Japanese came to the US they created the cheap sub-compact market. When the Koreans came in the mid 80’s they struggled against Japanese models but then in the early 90’s the Japanese started to make their cars ever larger, thereby opening the door to the Koreans in the sub-compact field. Today the Koreans are willfully squatting in the segment and the Japanese are coming back to play, all just before Geely even shows up for the party.

Will Geely be able to do more than get a few toes in the door? Well they won’t do it with the styling of the 7151 CK, or it’s awful moniker for that matter. It’s going to come down to fit & finish, material quality, ride quality and reliability. After my visit to the NAIAS next month I will be able to report on the first two on that list.

On a person note here at DublinSaab if we had $10,000 kicking around for a new set of wheels we'd spend it on this nice, 2001 9-5 Aero. But that's us.