How does the saying go? 'Blatant disregard for copyright is the sincerest form of flattery?'
Some Chinese auto makers have been on a roll in the recent past. Lynk & Co's concept vehicles have been making plenty of positive waves, the new MG E-Motion concept surprised everyone at the Shanghai Auto Show this year, and that's before you get to the likes of Haval and LDV.
But, for each of those examples are a number of start-ups and established players who make their folding by producing straight up copies of overseas designs. And this orange ape is the latest to break cover.
Nope, it's what we only know as a 'Projen'. It will reportedly be sold to Chinese buyers for ￥90,000 (which translates to NZ$20,000), with a turbocharged 111kW 2.5-litre diesel engine under the bonnet.
What's most important though are the oh-so-familiar looks. The front is punctuated by a massive blacked-out grill, a pair of angular headlights shaped to the grill's outer edges, and some rugged cladding underneath. The cherry on top of the copy-cat cake is the huge 'Projen' badging, printed and mounted in almost exactly the same size and font as the 'Ford' insignia on the nose of the Raptor.
Taking a step back, the subtle character lines on the Projen's doors indicate that it's rather ironically built with at the very least tooling from the Holden/Chevrolet Colorado.
Is that it then? Another blue-oval copy that's sure to slip through the legal cracks? Well, perhaps not yet.
Ford encountered almost the same exact issue five years ago when JAC Motors produced a copy of the F-150. At the time, Ford wound up putting a kibosh on the fake before it could reach the market. Going by the lack of information on the ground, this Projen could cop the same backlash.
Fingers crossed, anyway.