This big blue beauty is the Dongfeng Fengxing S560,
a new mid-size SUV for China. Fenggxing is one of the many brands under
Dongfeng Motors throwing new SUVs to the market as if they were candy bars. And in case you wonder how many other new cars Fengxing will
launch from now until 2020: seven, including three more SUVs and two
crossovers.
The Fengxing S560 is certainly one of Dongfeng’s
best looking SUVs of late, with modern sporty lines that are reasonably original.
And for once the wheels are big enough.
Dongfeng says that the S560 stands on a new platform
called FG-A. We doubt it is totally new, as Dongfeng is very famous for
endlessly recycling older platforms, and then handing them out to their various
brands to build ‘new’ cars on. The engine seems to prove not all is new; no
modern small-displacement turbocharged unit but a rather old fashioned
naturally aspirated 1.8 with only 139 hp, mated to a five-speed manual, a six
speed manual, or a CVT. Horses go to the front wheels. Dimension size: 4515/1815/1735 mm,
and wheelbase is 2690 mm.
The interior looks good for the segment, with brown
leather seats, an 7 inch touch screen, a sporty steering wheel, and with, yes!,
perforated pedals. Dials with a bit of blue and a small TFT in between. The
infotainment systems runs on an operating system called Lin OS 3.0, it comes
with goodies such as 360 degree camera, rear view camera, Baidu CarLife,
Bluetooth, and a Wifi hotspot.
It is a lot of car with a lot of space and a lot of
stuff. Engine isn’t very modern, and I suspect the platform ins’t very new
either. But nobody will really care about that when they see the price of this
thing: 69.900 to 96.900 yuan (US$ 10,540 – 14,600). That is really cheap, even for
China.
The Fengxing brand is mostly aimed at second and
third tier cities, so sadly we won’t see many of them here in Beijing.
