The presence of Pininfarina at the 2005 Shanghai Motor Show this week proves the design firm's position as a leading provider of design and engineering services to the Chinese manufacturers.

Pininfarina has a decennial year long history of successes in China thanks to the cooperations developed year by year with the main independent Chinese OEMs encouraged by the policy of the central government to support the growth of the Chinese car makers.

In fact, Pininfarina was the first independent Italian design house and supplier of automotive styling, engineering and development services to sign an agreement with the Chinese motor industry (in May 1996). The first result was the Hafei Zhongyi minivan, to which Pininfarina contributed its expertise in the areas of styling, design and industrialisation. Following on the success of the minivan, early in 2001 Hafei entrusted Pininfarina with the styling and design of the Lobo, a city car which was mass produced in China from November 2002. In September 2001, a third contract was signed, covering the styling, design, prototypes and testing of another new vehicle of the Saibao family, exhibited at the 2004 Beijing Motor Show, realized to meet European homologation standards.

Along the years Pininfarina has extended its activity to other important cooperations with Companies such as Chery Automobile and Brilliance China Automobile. Some other cooperations are being added, such as the one with the the biggest Chinese SUV manufacturer Changfeng, whose products will soon be on the market.

The constant growth of the Chinese market has prompted Pininfarina to open a permanent office in Beijing, and this will be followed in future by other dedicated structures near to its customers’ manufacturing sites.
 

The capacity of Pininfarina’s services to expand in the growing Chinese automotive market is underlined by the presentation at the Shanghai Motor Show, on the OEMs’ stands, of the following cars:

CHERY RHT - concept world debut

First example of a much wider cooperation with Chery Automobile. It represents the first Chinese car with retractable hardtop. Pininfarina is responsible for the design and the engineering. The car is based on an advanced new rolling chassis developed by Pininfarina utilizing engines autonomously built by Chery.

BRILLIANCE ZUN CHI - world debut

This new sedan 3-box designed by Pininfarina is born from the cooperation with Brilliance China Automobile.

AVICHINA-HAFEI SAIBAO - debut for China

Following its success at the 2005 Geneva International Motor Show, Auto Shanghai sees the debut in China for a styling model of a new car of the Saibao family, developed for the Chinese AviChina Auto Corporation (Hafei/Dongan/Change). This concept car anticipates the next 3-box, 5-seat saloon which will be manufactured at the Chinese plant in Harbin, underlining the vitality and innovative capacity of the AviChina Company.

Moreover, the following cars born from the co-operation with Pininfarina in the design, engineering and manufacturing sectors will be exhibited on the manufacturers’ stands: the Ferrari F430 Coupé and 612 Scaglietti, the Maserati Quattroporte, the Ford Focus Vignale concept and the Mitsubishi Colt Coupé-cabriolet concept: these last two anticipate production cars designed and engineered in close collaboration with Pininfarina, that will be manufactured in its Italian plants in 2006.