Fifty brand new units of Geely’s flagship D-segment
sedan, the GC9 will be added to China’s diplomatic fleet, serving as official
cars for state guests, diplomats and other dignitaries during their visit to
the land of the dragon.
This is on top of the 20 GC9s (also known as Geely
Borui) delivered to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs back in 2015 after a
series of official car policy reforms issued by the Chinese government in 2012.
The move was to actively promote homegrown car brands for state and official
use.
The Geely GC9 is the first flagship sedan in Geely’s
3.0 generation product portfolio, and was designed by former Volvo’s head of
design, Peter Horbury. It’s offered with three petrol engines, a 2.4 litre
naturally-aspirated inline-four, 1.8 litre turbocharged direct injection four
potter and a 3.5 litre NA V6, all of which are paired to a six-speed automatic
transmission. The car’s platform was jointly developed with Volvo.
For the 2018 model, the GC9 gets a major facelift
and Geely’s latest iNTEC driver technologies, as well as improvements to the
handling and NVH department.
Uruguay’s ambassador to China, Fernando Lugris said,
“we had previously chosen the Geely GC9 as our official car. The model’s
Chinese design, large interior and intelligent driving technology left us with
a very good impression. We will once again choose the GC9 as our official car
and believe that it’s a good representation of China’s automotive manufacturing
strength and style.”
At the handover ceremony, Zhejiang Geely Holding
Group President and Geely Auto Group President and CEO said, “looking into the
future, we will deliver even higher quality products and services that will
meet the increasingly mature market demand.”