The Chery J5 is a mid-sized sedan with a two-litre engine developed in collaboration with Austrian design company AVL.
Chery claims 95kW at 5500rpm and 180Nm at 4500, a fairly narrow power band but made user-friendly by a crisp, five-speed manual gearbox.
Its styling is quirky, smoothly rounded in front with a hard-edged, squared off, flat-assed boot reminiscent of the 1980's Lancia Thema. It will however, swallow a credible 483 litres - even with a full-sized, alloy-rimmed spare wheel under its floor.
The interior is roomy - perhaps deceptively so; I discovered that the seats have short squabs and lack that final 50mm of thigh support - although that could be forgiven considering the short legs with which most Chinese are fitted.
The footwells are also a little cramped - smaller than those of the tiny QQ3 in fact, and there's no dead pedal for your left foot.
The J5's "Lotus-tuned" suspension has Macpherson struts in front and trailing arms at the rear; braking is by discs all round; anti-lock and brake pressure distribution are standard.
Fit and finish, while not up to Western standards, is distinctly better than that of the QQ3. The J5 is available in a choice of two specification levels, TE and TX.
Each has two front crash bags, power-assisted steering, aircon, central locking, power windows, height and reach-adjustable steering column, trip data computer, power headlights adjustment and foldable power mirrors with demisters.
The front doors have large storage pockets, there are cupholders and a lidded storage box in the centre console and a folding centre armrest at the rear with two more cup holders.
The TE has a front-loading radio/CD player with four speakers, the TX a six-CD changer and six speakers. The TX also has leather upholstery and rear parking radar.
Prices:
J5 2.0 TE - R139 900
J5 2.0 TX - R149 900
The J5 comes with a three-year or 100 000km warranty and 15 000km service intervals.