The Chery Fengyun (), also sold as the Chery A11, is

Chery Chery Automobile Co. Ltd., Doing business as, trading as Chery (), is a Chinese automobile manufacturer owned by Chery Holding Group Co., Ltd. Founded in 1997, it is currently the fourth largest automobile manufacturer group in China, with 2,6 ...

's first car. Created without government approval, it has nonetheless been the first step of Chery's success story and helped transform the Chinese automotive market from one dependent on foreign joint ventures. Various importers and other commenters have also called the car "Windcloud" (direct translation of Chinese word "Fengyun") or "Fulwin" (romanized equivalent of the "Fengyun" name introduced by Chery after 2009).

Development

The Fengyun is essentially a badge engineered first generation Toledo, built by

SEAT A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but may also refer to concentrations of power in a wider sense (i.e " seat (legal entity)"). See disambiguation. Types of seat The ...

from 1991 to 1999, based on the A2 platform. This is the same platform used by FAW-VW Automobile for their successful, license-built FAW-VW Jetta. Windcloud production indeed depended on secret side deals with the same parts suppliers as did FAW-VW. A later financial settlement out of court meant Volkswagen agreed to abstain from a planned lawsuit.Hessler, p. 65 The purchase of the Toledo blueprints was also executed in secret, in spite of SEAT being a Volkswagen subsidiary: all of these deft negotiations were the work of engineer Yin Tongyao, who had originally worked for Volkswagen's Chinese joint venture. Chery SQR7160 Windcloud

Yin was originally poached by the government of

Wuhu Wuhu () is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Anhui province of China, province, China. Sitting on the southeast bank of the Yangtze River, Wuhu borders Xuancheng to the southeast, Chizhou and Tongling to the southwest, Hefei City to the n ...

, in

Anhui province Anhui is an inland province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiangxi to the south, Hub ...

, after they had reached the decision to develop a car for local production. Yin had also quietly purchased the production line for a rather outdated Ford engine (the 1.6 CVH) in England, which he then transferred to Anhui: the first engines left the production line in May 1999. This was to be the first engine installed in the Windcloud. It was later replaced by the more modern Tritec and Acteco engines. At the time, China had very strict regulations hindering the entry of new players into the automotive industry, so for nearly two years Chery was officially only producing "automotive components", albeit in a fully assembled form. In 2001, Chery finally received government permission to market their cars nationwide. Production of the A11 began in December 1999 as the ''CAC6340''. The name was officially changed to Fengyun, codenamed ''SQR7160'', in 2000, and Chinese production ended in 2006. The

Chery A15 The Chery Cowin (), also known as Chery A15, Flagcloud, or Amulet, is a subcompact car produced by the Chinese manufacturer Chery from 2003 to 2010. A facelifted variant was called the Cowin 2 and was sold from 2010 to 2016. Overview The Cowin is ...

, first presented in 2003, is a facelifted Windcloud.

References

External links

{{Chery Automobile Fengyun Sedans Subcompact cars First car made by manufacturer