China. Just when we thought the People's Republic was finally developing its own unique, interesting design language and was attracting big-name manufacturers to set up design studios, this happens.
This is not a
Volkswagen Taigun. This is a patent filing from a company known as Jiangsu Lake Motors, and it is a virtual ripoff of the VW that's slated to debut in China around 2016. Yes, a Chinese company is trying to patent someone else's design before it can go on sale.
The profile is nearly a carbon copy of the stylish new mini-CUV, while there's an incremental degree of originality in the front and rear of the car, with ever so slight styling tweaks. According to
IndianAutosBlog, Jiangsu Lake came up with a name as original as the car its patenting: "SUV." This is far, far,
far from the first time Chinese designers have blatantly stolen the design of a western vehicle, as IAB points out, but so far as we can recall, it's the first time a Chinese brand has attempted to patent the stolen design. Volkswagen should be lawyering up any minute.