Geely launches in Australia in February

Article
Gallery

By Karl Peskett | January 12th, 2011

Australian importer John Hughes will launch the Geely brand in Australia next month, when the first shipment of Geely MK sedans arrives in Western Australia.

Chinese Automotive Distributors will ensure the Geely MK will be Australia’s equal cheapest car with an $11,990 driveaway price, with power and space to rival the entire light car segment.

Powered by a 1.5 litre, four cylinder, petrol engine, the MK produces 69kW and 128Nm, so while weighing more than its rivals, the Barina Spark and Suzuki Alto, it has a better power-to-weight and torque-to-weight ratio than both. It will only be available in manual to begin with.

Geely Sales Manager, Scott Chivers, told CarAdvice that while the first shipment will be manual, there will be an automatic Geely coming in the following months.

The Geely MK has a larger boot than its rivals, at 450 litres, meaning it will accomodate a much larger payload, while fuel consumption is higher than comparably priced cars, at around 6.3-litres/100km. Coupled with its 45 litre tank, it has a theoretical range of over 700km.

The colours available are black, white, grey, red and silver with metallics costing $395 extra.

Initally, the car will be sold in Western Australia only, as it will not be launched with electronic stability control. Chivers told CarAdvice that when the model receives an upgrade and automatic later in the year, ESC will be included. Only then can it be sold in the Eastern states, as Victoria’s mandatory ESC regulations would prevent the car being sold there right now.

It will come with ABS and dual front airbags as standard, as well as an MP3 compatible, four speaker CD/stereo, air conditioning and power steering.

CarAdvice will bring you drive impressions of the car once it has been launched.

m2m

That interior….

V8

Year tell us about it mate! Especially that wheel! LOL

Duckula

Could that dashboard be any shinier… my god…. and the two tone beige.. and that steering wheel… sheesh – makes the brown interior of my old 87′TN magna look almost ( I say almost) nice…

HmmSquare

12990 gets doesn’t seem so bad now.

Andronicus

I just threw up a little.
And then had a good laugh.

EVERCAB

That steering wheel looks like my old Falcon AU’s
RickyC

Already been on sale in Singapore since October 2007! The model is old already.

I am Ben 10

How did you find that out?
but since it is 2007, that would explain the upgrade halfway through the year

Hung Low

Rip off! Not worth a dollar over $10k on road!

tekkyy

pretty much
it needs the 20% price gap

think Geely distributor is making the same mistake as Great Wall

a new player needs undercut in price or overwhelmingly exceed competitor’s spec (MK does not)

i30 wouldn’t be where it is now if it was price matching Mazda3

Able

Lucky Western Australia!
Faisooz

What in the name of all that’s holy are they doing ?
how could it be that this brand sells in australia ?
this car is well well well known for it’s miserable safety and very low build quality .. I’ve seen videos for a Geely car split in half owing to a very silly accident where the car understeered greatly and fish tailed to hit a stretched cable sideways right in its B pillars , then it was completely separated into 2 Pieces !
please australian authorities think it over again , for the safety of your motorists .. dont let this brand ever get near your coasts !

Jez

Well, Australians aren’t the most discerning of buyers… Look how well the Kia Rio sells. Likewise the Daewoo Kalos, once they changed the badges to say “Holden Barina”.

tekkyy

yeah
while they dont sell well they are selling too well for what they are
not exactly the industry benchmark

Shak

Whats with the evil green tinge coming off of the dash cluster, it looks so tacky.

f1worldchamp

Have you seen ‘Christine’?

http://CarAdvice The Salesman

So it will repair itself? And kill those who try and hurt it?

Jez

If so, that (price aside) may be it’s only selling point.

http://CarAdvice The Salesman

I don’t know, quite a lot on offer for 12k. You can buy a car that is self aware and possessed by a murderous factory worker. Cool…

Pedro

I honestly think that’s the ugliest interior I’ve ever seen.
Alexander

While i think Chinese cars have a hugely promising future, they still lag too far behind Korean and Japanese rivals to make sense in Australia. The Alto and Barina spark both have 6 airbags and ESP (and probably a much stronger crash structure) for only about $2,000 more than this car. If GM and Suzuki can offer relatively safe cars at such low price-points, surely the Chinese can as well?
Gibbo

I think they should by-pass the consumer with this one and send it straight to the scrap yard!
CJ

Don’t forget Alan Bond brought Hyundai into WA all those years ago, look at the sales now!!

Lars

Frightening thought….Geeky the next Hyundai?

Linksy

Oh My God that thing is hideous.
Aircon controls from a Hilux and instruments from a Yaris.
And please tell me those seats are all the way forwards.

nickdl

Yeah I think the marketing department deliberately put the seats forward to show off the, um, beautiful leather interior.

Linksy

Oh and this is the first car I have seen with a single Windscreen washer jet instead of two.
Dennis

Feels like back to the future…
ElecEng

Don’t tell me you guys didn’t notice that the front is almost identical to the old Astra (still ugly).
Don’t get me started on the interior…
A small car with a small engine and 450l of boot space? Can’t imagine the car moving if the boot was full.

Last and most important, no mentioned of the ENCAP Safety Rating!!!!
I think any vehicle sold in Australia should have a minimum of 4star ENCAP.

katyperry

ANCAP?

Zej

Taboo in Geely circles.
ElecEng

Yes, ANCAP.
I was 1/2 asleep….because how boring this car is.

katyperry

i guess it’s for the people who don’t want to ride their bicycles?

matt

OH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *sarcasm. Fool. please buy one and do us all a favor.

katyperry

fool? hahahahaha (no sarcasm matt)

Sonic

Probably. Though It’ll be a hell of a lot safer to ride a bicycle.

Ben 10

Especially on a highway

Hung Low

In the Dark wearing black!

nickdl

It’s great that Victoria are bringing in mandatory ESC because it has shown that manufacturers can fit it standard on a 12k car. That’s all well and good but they shouldn’t be letting in cars which have less structural integrity than a coke can. I really hope people see some sense and buy the safer, if not better Barina Spark or Alto.
Hung Low

I would rather buy a used Nissan Tiida for the same money! Now that is desperation but a smarter choice!
Toxic_Horse

Good for competition though.
Keeps the bottom end prices low. That filters up.
PoisonEagle

Should be under $10k. Importers are obviously greedy.
On the plus side, is that an AH Astra front end?
theo

Our iron ore is being dug up to make this crap!!!!!

nickdl

I don’t think they use much though!

Yonny

Probably not. But I bet they use a lot of that silver foil you get in packets of ciggies.

Vins

I’m not sure who are their target customer. The fuel consumption is uninspiring for a 1.5L engine and the power output is laughable for Australia road. The exterior and interior design are a bit awkward and so dated that it makes the Proton (which is similarly priced) looks great. Seriously, I hope they are not thinking that their customers are a bunch of dumb witted people.

DGS

Great Wall have a simular car called “C30″ on their Chinese (english language(ish)) website. While no styling leader, it is a vast improvment on this muddle of borrowed design.

It would seem that Geely is getting in first as if Great Wall release the C30 here for the same price it will be game over for this disaster of design. Currently the S16 remains the more attractive $12K sedan. A comparison artical could be interesting though.

If Geely are to be successful they might want to raid Volvo’s files for recent unused designs for the next model.
katyperry

well that’s how the chinese mind works -they think their customers are a bunch of dumb witted people

steven

There is a reason why they chose to sell them in Australia, a country that classes a Peugeot as a luxury car. most of the cars are crap and over priced and the people are simple.

Tim

The front is full Astra AH haha!
Duckula

How about I swap you the old 120Y thats in my brothers front yard ( that has no engine or doors) and u give me $1000 for one of these and we will call it a done deal.

RickyC

What’s a 120Y?

Duckula

As most know, the Datsun 120Y was the Evo8 or WRX of its day….HAHAHAHA

dog@pound.com

Jesus, I think it winked at me.
dog@pound.com

The radio shows FM 87.5. I guess now we know what the target market is.

The interior looks like a take from the Cadbury “wouldn’t it be nice” ad. All it’s missing is a bite mark on the steering wheel.
dog@pound.com

Hmm.. MK… I think it’s missing an extra letter ‘D’ in the middle.

MDK. Murder Death Kill.
katyperry

$11990 drive away…
1.5L
69KW
6.3L/100KM

should be $7000 drive away…

their brand slogan is “beyond value”

Doh ma…
Linksy

After making myself from vomiting thanks to this I decided to take another look.
Earlier I it had one of those Lexus clocks in it but on closer inspection it looks to actually be a Temperature display. What is up with that?
xr2/xr8

give me a diesel gemini. 50 mpg and designed at about the same time. possibly the same safety rating as well
Hooda

Getting around Victoria’s ESC laws:

Buy the car in WA, then drive/truck it to VIC.

Duckula

That wont work, you will not be able to change the rego over to a Victorian plate….and if you live in VIC and have an interstate registered vehicle for more than 3 months, it will void your 3rd party injury insurance and I dare say, void any other insurance.

Duckula

Apart from the fact, I dare say it wouldnt make the drive all that way, and if it was on the back of a truck/train it would probably blow off like an old deck chair…

Simpm

Another business venture by John Hughes – filling our roads with dangerous cars that end up on the side of the road, broken down in a few years.
I’ve seem these cars at a local shopping centre where they’ve been on display for weeks. It burnt eyes!

Duckula

Do you put coins in them and they rock back and forth outside the supermarket?

keith

Ugly and not even 1 star ancap
Ben

I think they were going after that ugly Buick they sell is the US. Man that’s ugly.. Well.. success.. This is ugly too.

Summing up this car. It is really just an 80′s tech car being sold 20something years too late.

And the dash in the middle of the car.. Geez I hate that. That’s more like 60′s thinking.
Hung Low

The Passenger Airbag looks like it had already deployed and was folded back into the dash by a factory worker! At least we know that it worked once!

Chinese shocks, tyres, no esp and unknown quality brake disc, pads and drums, I think I would feel safer in my old Cooper S!
RickyC

Wonderful! We get a 3+ year old car that’s been around since at least 2007. By the time it arrives on the east coast of Australia, it will be 4 years old. But hey, Nissan did alright with the Micra which was 5 years old when they re-introduced it to our market. I guess age only matters so much…
Chinese guy

You Australians are to jelous that Chinese can import their cars in here and soon , the chinese cars will take over the world and even if you don’t want it, you still have to buy it because the other manufactors have bankraupted Even TOYOTA!!!!!!!

DGS

We are not jelous of the chinese importing cars here, how would that work??? jelous implies we wish we could import cars here too.

You will find that we are a little unimpressed with these cars Safety, Badly copied designs and skeptical about build quality as experiances with “made in china” products vary from not bad to never again. If Chinese steel manufactures can start making steel with more tensile strengh than butter and Chinese industry stop taking cost cutting short cuts that undermine quality, Chinas Auto industry will become a major player very quickly.

Chinese guy

It’s the chinese who had the last laugh!!!
Chinese guy

Holden sucks! They can’t even desigh their own car!

http://holden paulb

ha,ha,ha.When you design+BUILD a car like a HSV,WE WILLSIT UP AND TAKE NOTICE
Henry

At least Holden Make Cars unlike ur Chinese Sh!t…

http://Audi Robj

You know what. Despite poor safety some people just buy on price. I’ll be amazed to see them on the road. Maybe they should appoint Motor Finance Wizard as national distributors..there’s an idea.

nickdl

Yes!
DGS

Might as well sell them in K-Mart, they will fit in with all the rest of the cheap chinese made stuff there.

Roshil

Hi I have seen a sample, and our understanding is give another 5years and then think about buying this brand. A Massive change will happen with in 5to 10 years and then it would be more like au standards .

People having a limited budget and this could be the answer , as the distributer is giving 5year warranty.

Give and take 5years is enough to change to another suitable car. .

Parts could be cheap but on the other hand what standard are they following for the metal structure. Is It rated for safety test. .
DGS

Does anyone know if this automotive abomination has yet been defecated onto our roads? I await a review with morbid curiosity only.
Henry

Any One noticed that the airbag cover on the passenger side has a huge gap in the front?

China probably fideled with it so i doesn’t deploy and kills us all!
kaykay little

i cant believe they can actually seel this crap in our car yards
let’s be honest here

Nearly everything we buy nowadays comes from Asia and the quality is actually not bad in most cases.
Toyotas are now made in Thailand.
Give this company a chance to release another model or two in a few years and they will be as good as any other in the Aussie market. Look at Hyundai. They started like this here and now look where they are. Great Wall is selling very well here and they have just a few models here so far. Remember, Geely is the company that owns Volvo. What does that tell you about the global demand for cars? Detroit is now a ghost town. Ask yourself why!
Even Mercedes Benz now manufacture in Asia.
Got to give the Asians credit where it’s due.
After all, what do we design and make here nowadays? Bugger all really if we are to be totally honest.
Plenty of the parts in our American owned Holdens and Fords are from China too, don’t worry. You’d all be surprised if you knew the truth.
Everything sold here is just rebranded and sold for four times as much so we will think it’s somehow better quality.
It’s not.
The real reason we get so many old model cars here is because we are a tiny market which is barely worth most large companies efforts to even sell to.
If they do make the effort then they always charge a premium price to make it worthwhile.
But we are also a nation of stupid people who have accepted this and always paid way too much for just about everything and we are gullible enough to fall for old fashioned fear based marketing.
You know, the type that says if it’s not a brand you know, then it must be crap or be unsafe etc. That’s all BS!
The reason we haven’t heard of most brands here in Australia is because they can’t be bothered with us when there are better markets to sell to.
Remind yourselves that there are cities overseas that have populations the same as our country.
Suck it up people and accept it is a global market nowadays and stop living in the past. Won’t be long now and cars will all be electric anyhow and we all know where most of the worlds electronics are made now don’t we?
We happily pay big bucks for all of that stuff and don’t compliain about the quality so get real people.
Did you know for example the inside of Sony TV’s is made by LG? The bits that are made by Sony are made in China, not Japan.
It’s all just brand marketing. Total BS is what brand names are. Your $900 iPad is made in the same factory in Shenzhen, China that makes the $100 copies, and they also manufacture for HP, Dell and others.
Your $100 plus Levi’s (yes, the genuine ones, not just the “fakes”) are made in the same factories that your $10 Kmart jeans are. It’s all the same stuff!
BMW’s are made in China as well as India.

Technologically we are a third world country compared to China. I’ve seen it in my travels and honestly it’s embarrassing to see just how backward we are.

Many people in Europe also think of Australia as a backward redneck country and I have to say after being overseas to various countries we do appear that way.
Anyone who thinks otherwise should get on a plane and go see for themselves because there’s nothing quite like seeing reality for themselves to stop people in their tracks and make them think.

Nothing wrong with being proud of our country where it’s due, but seriously these days we aren’t much more than an ever increasing hole in the ground which supplies the raw materials to the real leaders in this world.
Aaron

Trust John Hughs to be the one importing this junk into Australia. John Hughs has built an empire importing Korean garbage into WA and flogging it to unsuspecting WA motorists. The man is a shonk and so are his cars.