Chinese carmaker Geely is planning to attack western markets with a brand new supermini it is developing in Sweden with its subsidiary Volvo, writes Brian Byrne.
They've been thinking about it for a long time, as the GE Concept (above) shown at the 2008 Beijing Auto Show indicates.
Though Volvo is providing engineering expertise, the new car will only carry the Geely badge and will target established models such as Ford's Fiesta, Honda's Jazz, and similar.
One reason for the Volvo involvement is to make sure that quality and safety levels are up to European requirements.
It'll likely be a couple of years before we see the badge in this part of the world, but there's little doubt that Geely and its home peer makers are inexorably advancing towards us.
Last September, Geely and Volvo opened a new R&D Centre in Gothenburg, with a first task to develop a new modular architecture that can be used across the models of both brands.
Among the Volvo-badged cars which will first use this will be the next generation V40, which is currently based on a fairly aged Volvo platform.
