This is a Brilliance V5 crossover, seen in Beijing in late 2018. The Atlas Brown Metallic crossover looked very nice, with darkened windows, the original alloy wheels, and a controversial BMW-inspired design. The license plates are from Shandong Province. There’s a lot more to tell about this car, as always, so let’s roll.
About Brilliance
Brilliance was a Chinese car brand under Brilliance Motor, itself a subsidiary of the larger Brilliance Auto Group. The company’s Chinese name was Huachen (华晨, Brilliance), while the brand was called Zhonghua (中华) in Chinese. This was slightly confusing, as the brand used Brilliance as its English name. In the early 2010s, things were going very well for Brilliance. The brand had a design partnership with Pininfarina, sales were strong, and its parent company had formed a joint venture with BMW, bringing valuable engineering expertise and production know-how.
Sadly, Brilliance Auto Group went downhill from the mid-2010s. Messy corporate shenanigans and murky restructurings followed, while the company neglected R&D. In 2020, Brilliance filed for bankruptcy. Investors eventually rescued parts of the business, but discontinued the Brilliance brand.
The Brilliance V5
Brilliance produced the V5 from 2011 until 2020, with a facelift in 2014. The car in the photos is a pre-facelift example. BMW was not amused by the design. The V5 looked very similar to the E84 BMW X1, which Brilliance-BMW was producing at the very same time. Your best friend as a copycat, and your worst enemy! Brilliance even copied details such as the wheel design and BMW’s paint colors.
Chinese media and consumers noted the design similarities. At the time, many local car makers borrowed Western design, and there was a lot of fuzz about it, with some saying it was okay, and some saying it gave the Chinese car industry a bad name. However, thanks to the BMW inspiration, the design of the Brilliance V5 was pretty good and comprehensive. Original details include the bar between the lights, the oddly-shaped lights in the bumper, and… well, that’s about it. The car in the photos is the “Brilliance V6 1.5 turbo Sport” model.
The interior
These are probably the wildest seat covers I have ever seen. P*rn red fake leather, with a tiger-print neck pillow. Super kinky. Brilliance didn’t copy BMW’s dashboard. The V5 has a typical Brilliance dashboard design, with a large instrument binnacle and tech-ish dials on the center stack. Standard equipment included a 7-speaker audio system with a USB port and an SD-card slot, air conditioning, cruise control, and air conditioning.
Specifications of the Brilliance V5
The Brilliance V5 1.5 turbo Sport was a front-wheel drive car. The 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine put out 150 hp and 220 Nm. Buyers could choose between a 4-speed automatic or a five-speed manual gearbox, as in this car. Brilliance claimed a 184 km/h top speed, and 0-100 took 11 seconds flat. The fuel consumption was 7.6 liters per 100 kilometers.
The Sports mind Produced by Sports sticker is not original. Note the 1.5T badge, with a red T. At the time, many Chinese car makers started fitting turbocharged engines into their models, and most of them used red Ts or red turbo badges. A fantastic trend! That’s gone now, with the EVs and all that. The dimensions of the Brilliance V5: 4420/1800/1627, 2630.
Price of the Brilliance V5 in China
In 2015, just before the facelift, the Brilliance V5 1.5 turbo Sport sold for 99.900 yuan. That’s $15,900 using the 2015 exchange rate. Not a bad deal for a neat crossover with a turbocharged engine and a BMW design, and the Brilliance V5 did indeed sell pretty well. Today, it is sadly largely forgotten, and you rarely see one on the road in the big cities. But in smaller cities, you may find some still driving around.
