I was going out to dinner the other day when I spotted two cars parked next to each other: one orange, one blue. Nothing special at first glance. Then I looked closer and nearly laughed out loud — it was a 保时泰 (Baoshitai) and a 陆风 (Lufeng), sitting side by side like old friends.
If you’ve never heard those names: they’re the two most famous copycat cars in modern Chinese automotive history. The “Chinese Porsche” and the “Chinese Range Rover,” both built on a wild idea — sell a car that looks like a six-figure luxury SUV for about one-tenth of the price.
What Is 保时泰 (Baoshitai), the “Chinese Porsche”?
“保时泰” is the internet’s nickname for the Zotye SR9, which came out in 2016.
The SR9 is a mid-size SUV that looks… let’s be honest, almost exactly like a Porsche Macan. Same silhouette, same nose, same taillights, same roof line. It was a 1:1 copy in a way that Chinese car buyers had never quite seen before — and it was proud of it. Zotye even leaned into the joke in its marketing.
The price is the part that made it legendary: the Macan sold for around 500,000+ RMB. The SR9 started at roughly 108,000 RMB. That’s a Porsche-looking SUV for the price of a Toyota Corolla — which is exactly why the internet called it 保时泰: “Porsche” + a mocking suffix, roughly “Porsche-wannabe.”
It sold, and it sold well at first. Then the jokes took over, and the SR9 became a meme before memes were even called memes.
What Is 陆风 (Lufeng), the “Chinese Range Rover”?
Landwind X7 came out a year earlier, in 2015 — and it did the same trick with the Range Rover Evoque. Same proportions, same floating roof, same face. The most famous color was orange, which is why you’ll still see orange X7s driving around today.
The X7 was cheaper than the SR9 (around 120,000–140,000 RMB), but it made history for a different reason: Range Rover sued.
In 2016, Land Rover took Landwind to court in Beijing, claiming the X7 copied the Evoque’s design. After years of back and forth, in 2021 a Chinese court ruled against Landwind — it had to stop production of the X7 and pay around 1.5 million RMB in damages. It was one of the first major copyright wins for a foreign automaker over a Chinese copycat design.
Why Did China Have a “Copycat Car Era” at All?
Simple answer: Chinese car brands in the early 2010s were still learning design. Building your own great-looking car from scratch is hard and expensive, but copying a proven silhouette is cheap — and in the early 2010s, there wasn’t much legal enforcement against it.
So you got a whole generation of cars with famous twins: the SR9 looked like a Macan, the X7 looked like an Evoque, and plenty of others borrowed from the Germans too. Buyers knew exactly what they were getting. For a lot of families, it was the only way to “own a Porsche” — a badge-engineered dream.
Where Are They Now?
Not great, honestly.
Zotye (the company behind the SR9) hit serious financial trouble around 2020 and went through bankruptcy restructuring. The SR9 is out of production, though plenty still drive around.
Landwind had to kill the X7 after losing the lawsuit, and the brand quietly faded from the market.
But the cars themselves are still out there — like the two I saw at dinner, parked together as if the universe wanted to remind me of the weirdest, most wonderful era of Chinese car culture.
FAQ: Chinese Porsche and Range Rover Knockoffs
What is the Zotye SR9?
A Chinese SUV from 2016 that looks almost identical to a Porsche Macan, sold for about 108,000 RMB. The internet called it “保时泰” (Baoshitai, “Porsche-wannabe”).
What is the Landwind X7?
A 2015 Chinese SUV copying the Range Rover Evoque’s design. In 2021, a Chinese court ruled it infringed Land Rover’s copyright and ordered production to stop.
Is Zotye still in business?
The company went through bankruptcy restructuring around 2020. The SR9 is no longer produced, but Zotye has tried smaller comebacks since.
Did Land Rover win the lawsuit against Landwind?
Yes. The 2021 ruling ordered Landwind to stop producing the X7 and pay about 1.5 million RMB in damages.
Over to You
Have you ever seen an SR9 or an X7 in person? And for readers outside China — do your countries have their own “copycat car” eras, or is this a uniquely Chinese story?
I’d love to hear about the weirdest car copy you’ve ever spotted.
— Ying