Geely LC Panda concept

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Geely's LC Panda concept pairs hatch body with heavy duty 4WD underpinnings to wow showgoers. Picture by: Neil Dowling
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Neil Dowling

Contributing Journalist

1 min read

There’s always at least one crazy at any motor show. Once-conservative China is leaping aboard the outrageous concept-car wagon with Geely - one of China's biggest car makers with a $24 billion turnover in 2012 - trotting out its baby Panda with a 4WD undercarriage.

Suitable for Shanghai and Beijing crowded city streets? Definitely.

The shoehorning of a big truck frame beneath the Panda - normally a breathless 63kW bubble car - is purely to draw a crowd. Pity Geely didn't apply the same graft on one of its existing 4WD utes.

The Panda - called LC in export markets including New Zealand - was on the cards for Australia but was knocked back this year because of the lack of electronic stability control. It does, however, have a five-star crash rating on the China-NCAP test program.

The car can't be called a Panda in most markets because the name is registered by Fiat. To reiterate the Panda name in China, the design features Panda paw-shaped tail lights.

Photo of Neil Dowling
Neil Dowling

Contributing Journalist

GoAutoMedia Cars have been the corner stone to Neil’s passion, beginning at pre-school age, through school but then pushed sideways while he studied accounting. It was rekindled when he started contributing to magazines including Bushdriver and then when he started a motoring section in Perth’s The Western Mail. He was then appointed as a finance writer for the evening Daily News, supplemented by writing its motoring column. He moved to The Sunday Times as finance editor and after a nine-year term, finally drove back into motoring when in 1998 he was asked to rebrand and restyle the newspaper’s motoring section, expanding it over 12 years from a two-page section to a 36-page lift-out. In 2010 he was selected to join News Ltd’s national motoring group Carsguide and covered national and international events, launches, news conferences and Car of the Year awards until November 2014 when he moved into freelancing, working for GoAuto, The West Australian, Western 4WDriver magazine, Bauer Media and as an online content writer for one of Australia’s biggest car groups. He has involved himself in all aspects including motorsport where he has competed in everything from motocross to motorkhanas and rallies including Targa West and the ARC Forest Rally. He loves all facets of the car industry, from design, manufacture, testing, marketing and even business structures and believes cars are one of the few high-volume consumables to combine a very high degree of engineering enlivened with an even higher degree of emotion from its consumers.
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