File:Chery Fulwin.jpg

English: Place: Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

Chinese name: 奇瑞风云 (qíruì fēngyún) Year of launch: 1999

Chery Automobile was the largest Chinese carmaker for quite some time, thanks to successes of the QQ, Tiggo, A5 and the old Windcloud/Flagcloud (Fulwin/Cowin) models. Chery is a state-owned company founded in 1997. It began automobile production in 1999 after acquiring toolings and a license to produce the first generation Seat Toledo. Interesting is that Chery was only granted a production license for passenger cars in 2003, which means Chery cars couldn't be legally sold until 2001. Until then Chery was officially only producing automotive components, albeit in a fully assembled form. In 2001 Chery solved the problem by piggybacking on a SAIC Motor license, China's largest state-owned car manufacturer. Chery surely knowns the way around the law... After rising tensions between Chery Automobile and General Motors (GM) and Volkswagen, two of SAIC's joint venture partners, the 20% ownership SAIC once held in Chery was sold. GM was not amused and filed lawsuits after Chery copied their Spark (Matiz) and Epica (Evanda/Magnus) models. Volkswagen also planned a lawsuit against Chery, because they apparently secretly purchased the Seat Toledo blueprints, which is quite interesting considering Seat is a subsidiary of Volkswagen...

The Fengyun or Windcloud, also known as Fulwin, was followed by the Qiyun or Flagcloud, also known as Cowin, in 2003. The Flagcloud had a unique front end and rear end. Chery had a terribly messy line-up after it launched three new sub brands in 2009, two of which completely failed: Rely, Riich (both now defunct) and Karry. One of Karry's products was the Karry Youyi, in the vein of cars like the Opel Combo Tour. The Karry Youyi was initially branded as Chery Karry before Karry became a new brand. The Karry Youyi is based on the platform of the Windcloud/Flagcloud, and also shares its interior with these models (and Seat Toledo). Chery further complicated their line-up when it launched a whole range of Cowin-badged models in 2010: the QQ6 continued as Cowin 1, the Cowin (Flagcloud) as Cowin 2, the A5 as Cowin 3 and the Eastar as Cowin 5. The Cowin 2 continued to be produced until 2016, which finally marked the end of the old Seat Toledo launched in 1991.