Great Wall Florid – A Chinese deal!

OK, you might be thinking why should I be writing about a Chinese car in this blog isn’t it? I can’t resist my inner call to inscribe a review about this car from the moment I ride one for a week.

Probably this will be the cheapest small size sedan available in the market. Parking sensors, 15” alloy wheels, Bosch-sourced ABS with electronic brake-force distribution, cloth upholstery, CD/MP3 Player, mirror mounted indicator lights, fog lamps, split-folding rear seats and conceivably some airbags. All these you get for shoe string budget of AED 33,000. Is it worth buying a Chinese car even for cheap price? Let’s check it out.

Walkaround

Hold on, try to guess where else have you seen this car? Yes, you are right. Imagine if Toyota XA fucked Toyota Yaris, and they had a baby illegally, Great wall Florid just look like that. Rear resembles more like Toyota XA, front look like yaris, but when you drive the car you realize it is not either of them. OK, you take DNA of successful cars, take some cues and inspiration but what the fuck is this? I got to tell you guys this is a carbon copy of Toyota vehicle. It seems like some designer from Toyota bored of making cars and flied to China to give the blue print!

Any way China is a copy cat; they copy mobile phones, televisions, wrist watches, goggles, who knows they will be having replica of nuclear bomb too. The world knows it will certainly detonate even if that doesn’t blast like a real nuclear bomb, yet if it manages to explode like fart, still it is nuclear bomb dude! So I am not talking about copy cat work here anymore.

It has everything that you would expect or hope from a small size hatch back. Indicator lights on mirror covers sums up everything. Curved body looks very modern and stylish; paint quality appeared to be as good as their Japanese counterpart, head lights are bright and big, ample boot space, fog lights are standard for all models, matt black side skirting looks very attractive, chrome door handles. Good looking car. It would have been won few awards for their sleek design if there were no Toyota Yaris or XA on the planet. Shoot me; if no Toyota Yaris and XA, Florid wouldn’t have been born!

Driving Impression

Dash board give the impression of being typical small budget car with cheap plastic been scattered all over the place. Audio system display is really vibrant and menu text is slightly bigger than you would see in any other cars, audio controls are mounted on steering wheel. I liked the new big Great Wall logo on steering, it looks expensive. Again, where did I see those AC grills first time, Audi TT or Ford Mustang? Blueish display on Odometer provides a good ambience in the car at night, very comfortable seats, however I got disenchanted when I played my favorite music; it fetched the memory of my cheap audio system that I bought from Dragon Mart (Chinese Market) years ago.

Driving is a big letdown; this Chinese car would have been obtaining at least two stars if they could only match Toyota Yaris by 25%! The Florid is powered with a 1.5-litre 4-cylinder engine, and mated to a CVT transmission proudly outsourced from Belgium. The motor is good for 103 hp at 6000 rpm and 138 Nm of torque at 4200 rpm. But it moved like a snail, in roundabout I struggled to touch other side of the road, angry evening traffic horned at me from everywhere. (Honks are like abusing in car’s language!) To add up the agony Air Conditioner wasn’t blowing sufficient cold air. I turned it in max, still sweating.

Problems I had

It is a brand new car, so I would like to write here “No Problem so far”, instead I would say I had a problem with Air Conditioner (later I heard that the local dealer is fixing extra cooling fan for all their vehicles for free). No mechanical problem.

Overall

A car that can be called a car... may be just less than a car.

If commuting from point A to point B is your primary concern without too much of fuzz, this is it. This car will serve you just that. Don’t expect a performance of Toyota Yaris, Nissan Tida or Honda City, you will be disappointed. In fact designing point of view it looked better than its master print Yaris! Driving pleasure is a big zero. But you are spending only 33,000 bucks for a brand new car isn’t it? 3 years or 100,000 kms. warranty is a big plus though you got to buy and try this vehicle on your own risk. I am pretty sure the resale value of this car will be near to nil.

My neighbor happened to see me when I was parking the car in my parking lot –

“ahaa, have you bought this small car now? Where is your Porsche?”

“It is there in my office parking.” I answered with a smile.

“OK, now you bought a Yaris? Why Yaris?”

I had a strange expression on my face; I looked at him and the car.

“what?” Neighbor could not get what I mean.

“It is not Yaris!”

I walked in to the lift, I saw him checking the car before the lift door closed!