A Chery Riich M1 hatchback, seen in Beijing in 2015. The M1 was painted in a classy shade of dark red and fitted with steel wheels, which is always cool. The Riich M1 seemed to be in a fine shape. Front design still looks kinda crazy after all those years, with the gigantic headlights flaking a tiny grille.
Riich was a brand under Chery founded in 2009. It had a Bentley-style logo and it was positioned slightly more upmarket than Chery. Riich cars were based on existing Chery platforms. Consumers didn’t really see the difference between Chery and Riich, except the higher pricing, so sales were very slow. The brand was discontinued in 2013. That is a sad thing because Riich made some pretty cars, most notably the V6-powered Riich G6 and the stylish Riich G3.
The Riich M1 was based on the platform of the Chery QQ but design was very different and not a single body panel was the same. In China, the Riich M1 was available with a 69 hp 1.0 three-cylinder and with a 84 hp 1.3 liter four-cylinder. The former was mated to a 5-speed manual, the latter to a five-speed manual or a 5-speed automatic. Price in 2011 started at 41.800 yuan for the base 1.0 model, which was about 11.000 yuan more expensive than the QQ with the same engine. And that indeed, was the problem.
The interior was in need of a good cleanup. The owner fitted seat covers, Apple-logo’d fake belt heads to fool the seat belt-signal, a steering wheel cover, and some sort of MP3/MP4 device on the center stack. These devices were quite popular back when not everyone had a smartphone. They played MP3 music, MP4 video, and some even had a basic GPS function.
Note the interesting design on the C-pillar, where lines from the side, top, and rear meet in a little square. The rear window has a complex design, likely very expensive to produce.
The Riich M1, a fine little city car with a different design, but too expensive to have a real chance. They are very rare now, so if you see one, snap it up before it is too late…
But the story of the M1 isn’t over yet: In 2013, the same year the Riich brand was cancelled, Riich somewhat unexpectedly launched an electric version of the M1, called the M1-EV. It had 54 hp and an 80 km range. Riich priced it at… 169.800 yuan (!!!). Only a tiny number were sold and sales ended the same year. In 2017 Hawtai bought the rights to the EV version, relaunching it in 2018 as the Hawtai S1 iEV360, and it is still on the market today, so in a way, the Riich M1 is still alive.
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