"Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available" (whoistheleader2)
06/19/2020 at 15:35 • Filed to: Isuzu Axiom, Great Wall, down the rabbit hole
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"Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available" (whoistheleader2)
06/19/2020 at 15:35 • Filed to: Isuzu Axiom, Great Wall, down the rabbit hole | 1
| 24 |
I was going through Wikipedia pages for the Isuzu Axiom in preparation for another post on a future car show about cars from today when I discovered the Great Wall Hover, produced from 2005 to 2012.
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It all started with this footnote in a Wikipedia article.
The Chinese-produced !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ’s design is heavily inspired by the Axiom, but is unrelated
I’d also like to elaborate on the name “Axiom ,” courtesy of Wikipedia.
The name “Axiom” was determined by a naming contest held by Isuzu, and was won by Dr. Hakan Urey from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who suggested the name and won his own Axiom in 2001. The word means a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.
Let’s quickly compare the polarizing styling of the Axiom, based off the old Rodeo and still carrying a body on frame design. The Hover also appears to be truck based. As if it wasn’t enough to rip off Isuzu’s ambitious but failed take on the increasingly competitive SUV market they helped to create, Great Wall seems to have used it to birth the strangely named sister brand Haval.
Great Wall Hover
Isuzu Axiom
The Hover was renamed to the Haval H3 still under the Great Wall Marque at some point. Wikipedia claims Haval was launched in 2013 and the Great Wall Hover ended production in 2012, so it seems like sort of a Hyundai Genesis esque story here.
The Great Wall Hover was also imported to Europe and competed with Ssangyong and other niche brands based on the car’s low price.
To make things even more confusing, I found this image of the SUV marked “Hover H3.” Good photos of these cars are surprisingly hard to come by.
Hover H3
Few good images are available of the front of the Axiom, and with good reason.
Great Wall also produced a limousine variant caller the Hover Pi.
Great Wall is apparently very bad at framing press photos. All of them were always slightly out of frame to the right.
So this all begs the question, why copy Isuzu? There were plenty of more successful brands with better looking cars that were also less acquainted with the Chinese market. Isuzu would absolutely have known immediately about the forgery while a copy of the Chevy Trailblazer might have gone unnoticed. That also brings up the question of how Great Wall even heard about the Axiom when it was US market only and China is not know for their detailed information of the world outside China.
Haval’s current lineup is also rather dreary. They appear to have attempted to build a million different varieties of Ford Escape but slightly uglier.
The H3 is conspicuously absent.
So there you have it, the US market only Isuzu Axiom inspired the Great Wall Hover, which inspired its own brand named after it, though it was never sold under the marque.
punkgoose17
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06/19/2020 at 15:52 |
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The Axiom was a design ahead of its time it still looked contemporary in 2013, approximately the last time I saw one. The Trailblazer design aged fast.
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> punkgoose17
06/19/2020 at 15:59 |
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Yes, I agree that the Axiom has aged well. It wasn't received well in its own time and really didn't make sense to copy.
CompactLuxuryFan
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06/19/2020 at 16:08 |
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Spy Kids musta been a huge hit in China
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> CompactLuxuryFan
06/19/2020 at 16:14 |
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The Wikipedia article mentioned something about th at affect but I don’t remember anything from the time. What was it?
ranwhenparked
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06/19/2020 at 16:27 |
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Haval is allegedly a made up word that comes from “have value”, it was transliterated into Chinese as Harfu, and, from there altered again into “Hover”. So really, the two words are just two versions of the same brand name, tailored to different markets based on what Great Wall felt would be easier to pronounce or make more sense to the local population. They’ve kind of standardized on the Haval version, though.
Supposedly, the H3 is a very close clone, down to even the chassis design. It came out in 2005, just after the Axiom was cancelled in 2004, and maybe they felt it was a modern looking body that would stay current for a long production run, and was less likely to lead to legal problems than a design that was still in production or that had sold in very large numbers.
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CompactLuxuryFan
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06/19/2020 at 16:34 |
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What was what? The Axiom was featured as the ride of choice for whatever spy agency was in the Spy Kids movie franchise . Basically the 007 Aston Martin of these movies.
Full disclosure I’ve never even watched any of the movies but I did know there was a black Axiom in there.
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> CompactLuxuryFan
06/19/2020 at 16:40 |
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Why exactly would this ever be a thing that someone thought could exist? It makes no sense for a spy agency to use a very distinctive and uncommon SUV, much less attach helicopter blades to it and expect it to fly. I can only assume it was a paid promotion.
That is the most early 2000s car I’ve ever seen. The IMCD claims this is from a movie called Cougar Hunt though.
The resemblance to the Hover Pi is uncanny for the limo used in the movie (never seen but just looked up)
I suppose that’s why it’s called the Hover.
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> ranwhenparked
06/19/2020 at 16:43 |
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Huh, so the name is just the same but spelled slightly differently for different markets.
It just doesn’t make sense to copy one of the companies that would have the most knowledge of Great Wall, even if the car in question was USDM originally. It did look contemporary but at the time people tended to find it distastefully overdone. How tame it looks now.
Thank you for the info.
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ranwhenparked
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06/19/2020 at 17:01 |
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It was a stupid kids movie, it was probably a combination of Isuzu paying for product placement and a thought that the SUV could be passed off as cool.
When you think about it, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for James Bond to drive the crazy expensive flashy cars he does most of the time. In the books, he drove a 30 year old Bentley that he bought from a salvage yard and rebuilt himself, and only once checked a newer Aston-Martin out of the government fleet when he had to b uild cover as a wealthy businessman to get close to a particular suspect. In the movies, he basically just drives whatever paid for product placement, or what the producers think looks cool.
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> ranwhenparked
06/19/2020 at 17:09 |
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Really he drives whatever car is supposed to be made cooler by the movie (Z3 anyone?). Good comparison but it makes about as much sense as Bond driving an AMC (which he did). I think in real life Bond would drive a Genesis. In real life Spy Kids would be goat automatons that spy on farmers. If they were actual kids, they'd be in a minivan to be subtle. I have never been able to sit through more than a few minutes of a spy kids movie before getting kicked out of the room for heckling it.
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ranwhenparked
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06/19/2020 at 17:16 |
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American Motors paid $$$ for that, the scenes took place in Thailand, where AMC-Jeep wasn’t even sold at the time, and the cars were all US-spec LHD models.
There was an ‘85 Ford LTD and an ‘89 Lincoln Mark VII in there later, too. But, then, also a Lotus Esprit for cruising around Greece, posing as a marine biologist.
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> ranwhenparked
06/19/2020 at 17:29 |
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They do look pretty out of place. Never seen a whole Bond movie but I’ve seen that scene. Does make the AMCs used look pretty cool.
The cars have always defined James Bo nd though, regardless of how accurate they are to their environment. And you can't deny he makes the cars he uses cooler. I wonder how critical the Z3s use in the movie was to its success.
SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
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06/19/2020 at 20:13 |
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Errr... it’s not really a copy. Great Wall long had licences to use the old Isuzu mid size SUV and ute frame as the basis for some of their vehicles. T
The current Great Wall Steed/Wingle ute is no exception...it s front clip is a perfect fit on a previous generation Holden Rodeo and vice versa.
Haval sell into Oz with some well priced but unremarkable SUVs and, of course, the Great Wall Steed.
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> SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/19/2020 at 20:40 |
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Huh. I didn't find anything about them sharing the same platform. Wikipedia said they were unrelated but someone else here said that they had engineered the chassis as a copy. Is that Rodeo the one we had here in the early 2000s? I can't research anything right now so I might check back later when I learn more about the Great Wall Steed.
fhrblig
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06/19/2020 at 23:25 |
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My tinfoil-hatted theory for the genesis of the ‘Haval’ name is that they were intending to copy the RAV4 L badging on certain RAV4s.
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> fhrblig
06/19/2020 at 23:31 |
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That is some fine tin foil hatting there. The RavaL vs the Haval.
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fhrblig
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06/19/2020 at 23:40 |
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Is it that farfetched, though? From the land that brought us Hongda motorcycles and all kinds of crappy misspelled off brands? It totally seems reasonable to me. Great Wall is pretty shameless about ripoffs.
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> fhrblig
06/19/2020 at 23:43 |
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I think the Suzuki Grand Vitara did a better Rav4. However, this is also the brand that specifically copied the chassis design not just the styling.
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SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
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06/19/2020 at 23:43 |
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This version on the Rodeo (known as the RA) dated from 2003 to 2008. Upon its demise with the end of the GM/Isuzu tie-up , Isuzu licensed it to Great Wall and they built it and sold it. The engine and transmission were different as was the interior and front clip but the chassis and main body are, to my knowledge, exactly the same.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isuzu_D-Max#RA
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_Wingle
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> SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/19/2020 at 23:58 |
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Different from the US Rodeo though. That was an Isuzu MU based SUV from the 90s to the 2000s. The one you pictured looks very similar to the Chevy Colorado, sold as the Isuzu I series.
The Axiom was built on the old US market Rodeo chassis and, according to Wikipedia, not actually licensed to Great Wall.
“The Chinese-produced Great Wall Hover ’s design is heavily inspired by the Axiom, but is unrelated"
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SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
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06/20/2020 at 00:39 |
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The one I pictured is in no way related to the Chevrolet Colorado/Isuzu i-series. Those vehicles were made in the US, purely for North America.
The Rodeo pictured is the international Isuzu made version in Holden Rodeo livery.
The US market version of the Rodeo and the Isuzu MU were related. There’s every reason to suspect that Isuzu licensed parts of the MU to Great Wall whether it was the body shell alone or the shell and chassis...or perhaps Great Wall DID actually get a licence from Toyota to use the JDM 4Runner chassis as they claimed at the time...
Funnily enough...we had the Hover in Oz as the X240. It was rubbish.
pip bip - choose Corrour
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06/20/2020 at 06:41 |
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we in Australia never got the Axiom, but we got the Great Wall badged as a X240 (petrol) and X200 (diesel)
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> pip bip - choose Corrour
06/20/2020 at 12:19 |
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Huh. Was it sold as a Great Wall or a Haval?
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pip bip - choose Corrour
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06/20/2020 at 20:48 |
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sold here as Great Wall