A Shuanghuan Noble hatchback, seen parked on the road in Beijing in 2009. The Noble was painted in yellow with an orange-black interior, and fitted with Mercedes-Benz logo’s on nose and wheels.
The Shuanghuan Noble debuted in 2007. The company called it a “micro-coupe“. The Chinese name was Xieo Guizu (小贵族), or Little Nobleman. It came standard with faux-leather seats, sporty wheels, a radio-CD player that could also play MP3’s , and with power windows.
The Noble was a controversial car, as it looked quite a bit like the first generation Smart Fortwo. Chinese car buyers noticed and fitted their Nobles with fake Smart and/or Mercedes-Benz logo’s. Naturally the Germans protested, but there wasn’t much they could do, because Smart wasn’t selling the first generation Fortwo in China, and therefore Chinese courts didn’t see any problem and threw the case out. The Fortwo arrived only in China in 2010! So Shuanghuan beat Smart in China by three years (:
It is a Smart? Many design details are surely similar, like the lights, doors, door handles, and rear window design. But technically there were lots of differences: the Noble had the motor up front and the Fortwo in the back, and the chassis setup was totally unalike. Size wise they differ too. The Noble has a length of 3010 and a 2024 wheelbase, and it seats four adults. The Fortwo is much smaller; 2500 and 1810, and seats just two.
In China, the Noble was available with three engines: a 0.8 liter 3-pot with 52 hp, a 1.0 liter four with 56 hp, and a 1.1 liter four with 68 hp. The 3-cylinder was sourced from Chery. The other two engines were sourced from a company called Harbin Dongan Auto Engine, nowadays majority owned by Changan Auto.
The 0.8 was only available for a year, so that’s a rare one. The 1.0 and 1.2 continued until production of the Noble stopped. Even though it was quite big, the price was very small. The base 0.8 cost only 36.900 yuan in 2007, which was about the same as Chery asked for their QQ3, which was powered by the same engine.
Shuanghuan also made an electric version of the Noble for an American company called Wheego Whip Life, which manages to sell a few hundred of the things in North America. . Sadly, Shuanghuan went out of business in 2012 and that was also the end of the Noble.
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