It is rare to see such a perfect Shuanghuan Noble, but it did happen to me on the Tuning Tribe dealer area in Beijing. The good Noble was in a great shape, painted in red, and standing on its original wheels.
The Shanghuan Noble arrived in 2007 and became instantly famous as it was widely seen as a copy of the Smart.
Mercedes-Benz, owner of the Smart-brand, was very pissed of. There was not much they could do about China, but a German court banned sales in Germany. However, the Noble was sold in various southern European countries, including Greece and Italy.
Sales in China were never as good as the company hoped. Many car buyers considered the Noble too small for the money, and even Chinese consumers don’t like to drive in a car that is too obviously a copy of another one.
It is therefore remarkable that the Noble remained in production until 2013. in that year we also saw images of a facelifted Noble, but that one never made it to the market.
After production ended Shanghuan sold the platform and body to anybody who wanted it, and quite some companies used it as a base for small electric cars. The Noble lives on.
The interior was very basic, but Shuanghuan neatly managed to hide that by adding some colorful plastic cladding.
Hello Kitty seat covers are cool yeah! Yeah!! I also dig the big horny knob on the stalk. Where was that for..?
Simplicity is best visible between the seats. This is a simple car, not that far removed from a cart. But it looked kinda cool. Power came from a 1.1 liter four-cylinder petrol with an output of 67hp and 88nm, mated to a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic.
Price in 2009 started at 44.900 yuan and ended at 51.900 yuan. That made it one of the cheapest cars on the market, but its biggest problem was the Chery QQ. The QQ was even cheaper, starting around 39.000 yuan, and had four doors and 4+1 seats. Noble just couldn’t outsmart that.
The Noble came standard with everything you see: the window spoiler, the antenna, the white rear-light visors, and of course with the…
… famous twin-exhaust pipe. A Smart didn’t have that!
From the days when ABS and EBD were still a thing.
The Noble has always been rare in the capital, but this one has period license plates, so I must assume it was bought here new.
License plate holder was located on the left side of the bumper to keep space for the air intake, which was real, keeping cool that steamin’ 1.1!
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