A fiery red Great Wall Gwperi, seen on a road near my home in Beijing. The Peri was in a fine shape, but strangely the paint on both front doors was of a lighter kind of red. What happened there..?
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The Great Wall Gwperi is a very rare car. It was only manufactured for two years; 2008 and 2009. It was however very notorious for being a ripoff of the second generation Fiat Panda.
In 2008 Fiat successfully sued Great Wall in Italy, banning sales of the Gwperi in Europe. This ruling had no legal consequences in China, but Great Wall nevertheless decided to cancel production of the Gwperi.
The Great Wall logo depicting a watchtower on the Great Wall of China.
The name has always been a bit odd. GW stood for Great Wall. So the name is really the Great Wall Great Wall Peri.
The oddness extends to the Chinese name of the car. The badge on the left side of the rear reads Changcheng Qiche, or Great Wall Auto.
The badge on the right reads Changcheng Jingling. Jingling is the Chinese name of the car, it means Wizard. So the Chinese name is, translated back to English: Great Wall Auto Great Wall Wizard.
The interior was a copy of the Fiat too. Seat covers are after-market but the radio appears to be original.
The Gwperi was available with just one engine: a 1.3 petrol with 92 hp and 118 Nm, mated to a five-speed manual. Price for the base model in 2009 was 44.900 yuan. There was also a cross-version, more on that one in a later post.
