China’s cars may have failed to take off here, but maybe things will be different for this MPV

SINGAPORE — The failure of Chery and other China brands here says plenty about Singaporeans’ appetite for Chinese cars, but what about the Middle Kingdom’s Multi Purpose Vehicles (MPVs)?

That’s about to be put to the test by the Maxus G10 Executive, a van-based, seven-seat MPV that was launched at the Singapore Motorshow at Suntec this morning.

It’s priced at S$148,888 with Certificate Of Entitlement for the base Luxury model, with a better-equipped Flagship model priced at S$158,888.

The panel van origins of the G10 create plenty of interior space for the seats, which are laid out in 2-2-3 configuration. It’s more than 5.1m long, and the boot can accommodate up to 2,500 litres of stuff. It’s also a tall car, but will apparently fit into a HDB carpark.

The G10 is powered by a 2.0-litre turbo engine with a creditable 225 horsepower output and 345Nm of peak torque, driving the rear wheels through a six-speed ZF automatic. Maxus says the van’s suspension was tuned by Lotus.

The Maxus comes with fairly current features such as keyless go and an enormous touchscreen display, and the Flagship model has a set of controls for the rear air-con blowers. From our quick bounce-around inside it, the interior is trimmed in decent quality materials that do well to mask the G10’s van origins.

Likely targets for the Maxus are such mega-MPVs as the Toyota Alphard and Vellfire or Nissan Elgrand. Though it looks as if it might be a match for those cars in terms of size, whether it is able to offer the same levels of refinement on the move is an open question.

Although the G10 is a China product, the Maxus name itself has British origins. It was a model line built by LDV, a defunct commercial vehicle brand whose intellectual property was acquired by SAIC Motor in 2010.

Maxus’ commercial vehicles are marketed by Cycle & Carriage here with some degree of success (the brand sells about as many vehicles as Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles does). If the G10 does well in the finicky world of passenger cars, however, that would be the far more significant achievement.

The Singapore Motorshow 2018 runs from January 11th to 14th at the Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre. Tickets cost S$6 . The show closes daily at 10pm