Superfast1

Hi there, my wife & I are currently on vacation in South Korea & saw this car that I've never seen before. It caught my eyes as it looks like an offspring of my Lexus LS400 & Mercedes-Benz CL500. Tell me if it does & can you guess what that is?

CELSI0R

I believe that's a Hyundai Equus, but I can't find exactly what year..

It looks like an E-Class / CL front profile on an LS for sure. The rear lights and wheels remind me of an ES330

Superfast1

I was curious about the car so I did some research & found out the name of the car is Chairman, yes, Chairman. It's a full size executive luxury car that was made by SsangYong, a South Korea-based auto manufacturer from 1997 to 2017. The car is a copycat of the Mercedes-Benz as it was built on the W124 E-Class platform but made to look like a W140 & W220 S-Class. They even used Mercedes-Benz's engines & the front radiator grille also looks exactly like the Mercedes-Benz grille (see attached photo) to a point that Mercedes-Benz had requested the auto maker to re-design the car to make it looks less like a Mercedes-Benz. The German auto maker also refrained the South Korean automaker from selling the Chairman in Europe & in the US, that's why it wasn't well known. In facts, it was a total flop so they're no longer making it. There you have it.

CELSI0R

That's incredibly interesting! Thanks for sharing

I was thinking Equus because of the badge (https://www.coolcarsinchina.com/2018...ates-in-china/)




I wonder if SsangYong got in trouble with Hyundai for that badge at some point. It looks nearly the same to me!

Their earlier gen car looks even more like a Mercedes!




Even the engine looks like a Mercedes M104 clone that was an option for the E class

Not to mention the single windshield wiper. DEFINITELY Mercedes!

YoshiMan

I wonder how the build quality is, and if it has any ties to the Hyundai/Kia family?

A lot of older Korean cars were based on Mitsubishi platforms as well, so maybe it has some DNA from them as well.

Superfast1

Not sure if it has any ties to Hyundai/Kia but while I was searching for the info on the car, I found out SsangYong was acquired by Daewoo & then later acquired by Mahindra, an India automaker. Very interesting, isn't it?

CELSI0R

It looks like Ssangyong was partially owned by Mercedes-Benz, which is why the engine looks like a Mercedes engine with Mercedes parts, and why the car looks like a Mercedes

It's because beneath the skin, it really is a Mercedes, and that is the Mercedes M104 engine

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

^crazy, never knew of such a collaboration!

400fanboy

Happens all the time. There are joint ventures, like the new Supra. Platform shared with a BMW Z4 with a LOT of BMW parts, but development was forked and Toyota finished their version of the car. Then you have platform sharing which is a far closer duplication. The Toyota GT86 is actually a Subaru which is also sold as a Subaru BRZ. Even less is changed and it's more akin to crossing out Subaru and writing Toyota in crayon.

You've got re-badging of cars for international markets like the Audi A4 and SEAT Exeo. You've got Lotus putting Toyota engines into their sports cars. You've got a bunch of Japanese car companies using Yamaha engines in their Kei cars. You have the endless replication of GM\GMC\Cadillac and Ford\Lincoln models being the same base car with nicer trim.

Hell, the W124 Mercedes 500E was (mostly) built by Porsche. Mercedes would send over a body-in-white to Porsche who would finish the car at their production plant. And that was after Mercedes paid Porsche engineering solutions to actually finish development of the car. And even better, the Audi RS2 was built at the same factory. So for a while, the hottest biggest engine version of a car by Audi and Mercedes were being built at a Porsche factory which was idle because they stopped making the 959... which was perhaps the most technologically advanced car of its era.

I'm getting sidetracked sorry. The point is - it's a pretty fluid marketplace.

Superfast1

Very interesting. Thanks everyone!