Shanghai Clone Wars: Landwind X8 vs Mitsubishi Outlander

There are clones and there are clones. While some come pretty close such as Lifan Motors' effort to give birth to a five-door MINI Cooper, other like Jiangling Motors's Landwind X8 that made its debut at the Shanghai Show this week, is a dead ringer for Mitsubishi's Outlander. For those of you with a weak memory, China's Landwind became known for being the first Chinese automaker to enter the European market with the SUV that spectacularly failed a crash test carried out by the ADAC, Germany's largest auto club.

And it's not only the exterior design of the Outlander that has been copied, it's also the interior as the X8 gets the same exact dashboard styling with the deep set instrument panel featuring the two circular tube-like structures.

But you still haven't heard the best part of the story; according to the Landwind, the X8 will be offered with two engines: a common-rail turbo diesel from Italy's VM Motori that develops 140HP and 350Nm of torque and -get this- a Mitshubishi sourced, 2.4-liter 4-cylinder gasoline engine with 150HP!

Sales of the Landwind X8 are to start in China during the second half of the year.

source: http://carscoop.blogspot.com

Mitsubishi Outlander SUV

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Landwind X8 SUV

[New] Landwind X8 & X9 2009

Au salon de Shanghai, Landwind présente ses nouveaux SUV, les X8 et X9. Même s'il est trés inspiré du Mitsubishi Outlander, le X8 est le premier vrai SUV de la marque.

Ce Landwind X8 est un SUV disponible en essence comme en diesel. On retrouve ainsi le 2.5 litres diesel qui développe 141ch, déjà vu sous le capot du plus petit X6, et le 2.4 130ch essence de chez Mitsubishi. Ce X8 devrait être commercialisé au second semestre 2009.

En parallèle, Landwind présente la version de série de son X9, un clone du Frontera Sport qui devrait arriver en juin. Il sera proposé avec le 2.5 turbo-diesel et sera certainement disponible temporairement dans une série limitée. Ce SUV sera le premier découvrable de la production Chinoise.

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