As I sat in traffic on Ruta 5 waiting for the light to change to green in the city of Coquimbo on my way north to see the total eclipse of the sun, I saw a Chery Face in front of me — and I had to read it multiple times to ensure that what I saw was correct.
I Saw a Chery Face in Chile. What Is a Chery Face?
A Chery Face is not a fruit pastry or an expression of deep embarrassment. Rather, it is a model of a very small car — but I initially thought that perhaps the nameplates on the car was an automobile dealer and not the model and make of the car.
I had never heard of Chery Automobile Company, Limited; but I found out that it is an automobile company which is based in China and founded on Tuesday, March 18, 1997. On Saturday, October 27, 2001, the first batch of ten Chery cars were exported to Syria via Tianjin Port. During the first half of 2019, the company claims to have sold 325,000 units. Its official slogan is Fun to Drive.
Vehicles of Chery are apparently sold in every continent in the world — except for North America and Antarctica. In addition to the Chery Face — which is also known as the Chery Fresh in Taiwan, the Chery Ego in Serbia and Macedonia, and other names in other countries around the world — the company also manufactures such models as the Tiggo and Arrizo, which respectively sound like a friend of Winnie the Pooh and a type of sausage. There is also the Chery Fulwin, the eQ and the New QQ.
The Wikipedia article for this Chinese automobile company states the following: “Since the early 2000s, Chery has received criticism for myriad alleged infringements of foreign manufacturers’ intellectual property rights. Several Chery vehicles appear to have directly copied design elements from various foreign manufacturers. Some also criticize the company’s name ‘Chery’ itself, which looks reminiscent of ‘Chevy’, the shortened name for GM’s Chevrolet brand.”
Hm. Chevy? That is a cavalier way of doing business.
I know: shame on me for using the same joke two days in a row.
Summary
I can just see some guy in a bar trying to pick up a woman.
“Hey, baby.”
She instantly falls in love with him with such an imaginative opening line and asks “What kind of car do you drive?”
“I drive a Chery Face.”
Can you just hear the wedding bells chime?
Although I never drove one, Chery Face is the strangest name for a car which I have heard since I drove a Seat through Andorra last year — I prefer to drive the whole car and not just a Seat — and yes, I intend for those trip reports to be coming in future articles, as I now feel all Chery-faced for not writing them sooner…
Photograph ©2019 by Brian Cohen.
