A mellow yellow Geely Meirenbao, seen late at day in Beijing. The sporty Gee’ was in a good shape inside and out, and still standing on its original wheels. It is rare to see a near-standard Meirenbao, as many were modified.
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The Meirenbao was China’s very first self developed sports car. Geely translated the name as Beauty Leopard, but it actually means Beautiful Leopard.
The first generation Geely Meirenbao was made from 2003 until 2006. Out yellow car is a very early example, visible by the Geely logo on the bonnet. This was replaced with a hipper Leopard-thing on later cars.
The first generation Meirenbao came with questionable English-language logos. Fashion! But the handwriting was nice.
Geely and other Chinese automakers are often accused of copying foreign design, but the Meirenbao was definitely not a copy. It looked sporty in some fuzzy way. It was not exactly pretty, but it wasn’t ugly either. Wing, quadruple lamps and oval exhaust pipe were all standard.
In the beginning the only engine option was a 1.3 with 86 hp and 110 Nm, good for a 170 km/h top speed and a 0-100 in 12.6 seconds. Later on, Geely added a 94 hp 1.5 to the lineup. Our yellow car is a 1.3.
Price for all this pretty started at 99.900 yuan in 2003. Yes, you could have a real Chinese sportsmachine for less than a ton!
The Meirenbao badge on the back. In the same classy handwriting as Fashion.
Tiny grille didn’t exactly scream speed…
An official 2004 factory photo, in almost exactly the same color and spec as the car that I saw. With one notable difference: the bars in the grille on my car are gray, whereas they are black on the factory photo.
Another very similar car on a 2004 auto show, with gray bars in the grille.
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