SAIC to Resurrect LDV Maxus
Information and photos leaked from SAIC’s factory in Wuxi, Jiangsu province (Between Shanghai and Nanjing) show that the Chinese automaker has been working to bring back to life the LDV Maxus van, whose production in Birmingham, England was ended in December 2008.
Launched in 2004, the award-winning Maxus was developed jointly by the now-defunct British van maker LDV and Daewoo Motor at a cost of £500 million. Russia’s GAZ acquired LDV in 2006 with a plan to produce Maxus in one of its Russian factories. As GAZ fell into financial trouble, the plan was never realized and production of the money-losing Maxus was halted in Birmingham towards the end of 2008.
On October 15, 2009, a venture called Eco Concept purchased most of LDV’s assets. The head of Eco Concept at the time was Dr Li Qu (known in the UK as Dr Qu Li), a British Chinese whose father was a senior official of Nanjing Automotive Corporation which became part of SAIC in 2008. Eco Concept was believed to have acted as a proxy of SAIC, the real buyer.
Li Qu has lived in the UK for over 20 years, was familiar with British culture, lifestyle and work style, and has many connections. Dr Li's father was an important NAC veteran engineer, because of this relationship, she and several major automakers in China have links. Dr Li has long worked as a consultant in the auto industry facilitating deals between UK and Chinese companies.
After the purchase, production facilities of Maxus were shipped from Birmingham to the Wuxi factory of Nanjing Automotive, previously used in the production of Nanjing Soyat cars. According to a Chinese new report, SAIC has since been upgrading the interior and installing new devices on Maxus, with the hope of launching it in late 2011. ABS will become standard, and the high-end version will get features like backup radar, tire-pressure monitoring system, GPS, rear air conditioner. Italy’s VM Motori will supply the same 2.5L diesel engine as the one previously used on Maxus, rated at 88 kW/4000rpm and 300Nm/2000rpm.
The original plan was: "We propose to start a new business, utilising retained production facilities at a new location in the Midlands, to focus on low volume, specialist vehicle production, starting small, targeting steady growth in a niche section of the market." The location was thought to be Longbridge however there has been no news on longbridge involvement since 2009. Currently it looks like the Maxus will initially be put on the market in China, possibly only in Minibus form with exports to follow in a similar fashion to the MG6. SAIC Charman Hu Maoyuan has recently stated that LDV is important in SAICs entry to global markets, following the purchase he said: "SAIC has bought LDV mainly for its intellectual property rights and the corresponding tooling equipment, in the UK we will retain a factory and export parts to the United Kingdom for local assembly, so that we can sell to the wide body light passenger vehicle market."
You may notice from the images that the badge is no longer skip shaped and so the new Maxus may not be relaunched as an LDV, but instead as a...
Main source: http://chinaautoweb.com/2010/08/saic-to-resurrect-ldv-maxus/
Information and photos leaked from SAIC’s factory in Wuxi, Jiangsu province (Between Shanghai and Nanjing) show that the Chinese automaker has been working to bring back to life the LDV Maxus van, whose production in Birmingham, England was ended in December 2008.
Launched in 2004, the award-winning Maxus was developed jointly by the now-defunct British van maker LDV and Daewoo Motor at a cost of £500 million. Russia’s GAZ acquired LDV in 2006 with a plan to produce Maxus in one of its Russian factories. As GAZ fell into financial trouble, the plan was never realized and production of the money-losing Maxus was halted in Birmingham towards the end of 2008.
On October 15, 2009, a venture called Eco Concept purchased most of LDV’s assets. The head of Eco Concept at the time was Dr Li Qu (known in the UK as Dr Qu Li), a British Chinese whose father was a senior official of Nanjing Automotive Corporation which became part of SAIC in 2008. Eco Concept was believed to have acted as a proxy of SAIC, the real buyer.
Li Qu has lived in the UK for over 20 years, was familiar with British culture, lifestyle and work style, and has many connections. Dr Li's father was an important NAC veteran engineer, because of this relationship, she and several major automakers in China have links. Dr Li has long worked as a consultant in the auto industry facilitating deals between UK and Chinese companies.
After the purchase, production facilities of Maxus were shipped from Birmingham to the Wuxi factory of Nanjing Automotive, previously used in the production of Nanjing Soyat cars. According to a Chinese new report, SAIC has since been upgrading the interior and installing new devices on Maxus, with the hope of launching it in late 2011. ABS will become standard, and the high-end version will get features like backup radar, tire-pressure monitoring system, GPS, rear air conditioner. Italy’s VM Motori will supply the same 2.5L diesel engine as the one previously used on Maxus, rated at 88 kW/4000rpm and 300Nm/2000rpm.
The original plan was: "We propose to start a new business, utilising retained production facilities at a new location in the Midlands, to focus on low volume, specialist vehicle production, starting small, targeting steady growth in a niche section of the market." The location was thought to be Longbridge however there has been no news on longbridge involvement since 2009. Currently it looks like the Maxus will initially be put on the market in China, possibly only in Minibus form with exports to follow in a similar fashion to the MG6. SAIC Charman Hu Maoyuan has recently stated that LDV is important in SAICs entry to global markets, following the purchase he said: "SAIC has bought LDV mainly for its intellectual property rights and the corresponding tooling equipment, in the UK we will retain a factory and export parts to the United Kingdom for local assembly, so that we can sell to the wide body light passenger vehicle market."
You may notice from the images that the badge is no longer skip shaped and so the new Maxus may not be relaunched as an LDV, but instead as a...
Main source: http://chinaautoweb.com/2010/08/saic-to-resurrect-ldv-maxus/