Shanghai’s China Pavilion hosted a very big event to celebrate Chery’s latest release, which was even transmitted to four other cities in real time. Such strategy anticipates how important this sedan is to the automaker, which has been struggling to retrieve the market share it has lost during the past few years. The bright side is that entering in such serious situation enabled this company to improve itself. Chery wants not only to recover its position but achieve a better one, around the world. Releasing Arrizo7 is the first expression of that.
Although most of its reputation is restricted to China, in that market this company works almost like a reduced-scale General Motors. Chery has decades of tradition there, sells cars of many different price ranges and even works with multiple brands, each one dedicated to a particular group of vehicles. However, the company’s image was never so good, specially outside its homeland, because its products lacked quality. In some cases assembly quality too, like cabin parts with sharp edges or bad fitting, but specially the less obvious concept quality. Tiggo, for instance, was accused of copying the old Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4’s respective front and rear designs. With QQ it was even proved that its doors were the exactly same as the first Daewoo Matiz’s. And the other cars never had anything to stand out positively. Chery became officially in trouble after starting to expand into other markets, because the media made these flaws known around the world. That’s why the automaker started to lose reputation and sales, and therefore needed to act quickly. The first results of that were showing concept cars and the new Qoros luxury spin-off, and now it’s time of the first production vehicle.
Arrizo7 becomes so interesting to analyze because it debuts Chery’s first design language, whose elements are expected to be re-interpretated for the future releases. The mid-size sedan features a very elegant styling, with shapes and volumes which avoid attemps of creating revolutions in order to become classy. The pictures show a very European-inspired style, which begins with a very modern front fascia: the rectangular headlights use LED daytime units and just the right quantity of chrome accents: the upper grille looks elegant, while being entirely black makes the lower one a little sportier. The sides were very well-proportioned and repeat Chery’s intentions for Arrizo7: since it’s a classic family car, it needed to be long (4,6 m, which gives a 455-liter trunk). So those third side windows were added even being small, because it stays away from trying to be sporty and reduces this section’s “empty” spot. Finally, the rear fascia may show a little less inspiration, but still looks very good. All of this was created by a team of designers from several countries, which suits very well Chery’s intention of taking the sedan outside China starting next year.
Entering the car manages to give the exact same impression as its outside did. There are two-tone coating with some chrome accents, multifunctional steering wheel, infotainment central with big touchscreen and a very nice design, which all follow most of the current trends. Arrizo7 will be well-equipped since the cheapest trim level (in China there will be four, going from 78.900 to 103.900 Yuan): it can include automatic climate control, GPS navigator, leather seats, multimedia sound system, alloy wheels, ESP, ABS brakes with EBD, sunroof, eight airbags, adaptative front-lighting, rearview camera, anti-glare internal rearview mirror, glass defrosters, electric power steering and even some luxury items: keyless entry/start, HUD system, lane-keep assistance and a second entertainment system, for the second row. When it comes to the powertrain, Chery will use once again the Acteco engines developed by itself: the 16-valve 1.6L produces 125 hp and enables the car to go from 0 to 100 kph in 12s1 and to 183 kph of top speed. The five-speed manual transmission can be upgraded to a CVT unit, but according to the trim it’ll add some other items which are unavailable for the respective one with manual.