While controversy reigned briefly last week at the China Automobile stand, Brilliance, the other Chinese auto maker at the Frankfurt motor show, quietly continued to tick all the right boxes.

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Following a well-received launch at Geneva in March, Brilliance has now started selling cars in Europe and launched a fourth new model, the BS2, at Frankfurt.


The company has also overcome its first setback – a poor showing in crash testing for its first model, the BS6 sedan. This gained only one EuroNCAP star but Brilliance has rectified the situation by ordering a rapid redesign. Independent tests suggest the car will now gain three stars, something that pleased Hans-Ulrich Sachs, head of Brilliance’s European distributor HSO Motors Europe.


Sachs knows the car business – he launched Hyundai in Germany in 1991, he’s been a senior brand manager for Volkswagen, and he’s been CEO of Germany’s largest Ford dealer. Brilliance is BMW’s assembler in China, and signed a deal with HSO Motors to distribute its cars in 17 European markets in September 2006.


Currently only the BS6 is on sale in Germany, but the smaller BS4 saloon will come by the end of 2007 and the SC3 coupe will follow in early 2008. The BS2 hatch will arrive by October/November 2008, and more models will follow, including a Pininfarina-styled station wagon/estate car at next year’s Geneva show.

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The UK and other markets which drive on the left will have to wait for Brilliance – the company currently has no plans to build RHD versions.


“I don’t know when this will happen, “ said Sachs, who has the UK rights and would like to sell the cars here.


Brilliance is ambitious – its production capacity is 220,000 at the moment (less than the capacity of Toyota’s UK assembly plant) – but by 2010, it will have almost trebled this to 600,000. It is building a new factory for the BS2 beside the existing factory, and has a plot of land handy for further growth.