Chicago Tribune’s Jim Mateja on the Chicago Auto Show

Perhaps Don King should sponsor the Chicago Auto Show. In this corner, General Motors Chairman Rick Wagoner will address the Economic Club of Chicago at the show Feb. 10. In the other corner, Malcolm Bricklin will tell the automotive media of his new venture importing cars built in China to the U.S.

From Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Perhaps Don King should sponsor the Chicago Auto Show.

In this corner, General Motors Chairman Rick Wagoner will address the Economic Club of Chicago at the show Feb. 10.

In the other corner, Malcolm Bricklin will tell the automotive media of his new venture importing cars built in China to the U.S.

You may recall that Bricklin founded Subaru of America to distribute the Japanese car line in the U.S.

He also created and sold the short-lived Bricklin gull-wing sports car and later distributed the Yugo, a $3,995 subcompact that quickly became the butt of jokes and then disappeared.

Bricklin now plans to bring us Visionary Vehicles, which will import and distribute cars produced by Chery Automobile Co. in China starting in 2007. Bricklin says the vehicles will be priced about 30 percent less than rival models and carry a 10-year/100,000-mile warranty.

What makes Bricklin’s appearance here only minutes after Wagoner’s noteworthy is that GM has sued Chery in China, charging that one of the vehicles it builds and sells there is so “strikingly similar” to one of GM’s that the body panels are interchangeable.

GM Daewoo Auto & Technology, the automaker’s South Korean operation, says the Chery QQ is a copy of the Chevrolet Spark.

While the Chinese government told GM to resolve the issue by “mediation or legal means,” GM says Chery has responded by stepping up efforts to sell the QQ.

“I didn’t know Bricklin was still alive,” Wagoner said, breaking into a smile in an interview a few weeks ago at the Detroit Auto Show.

“If he tries to bring the car into the U.S., I would imagine we’d do what we could to stop it. The issue is that a car sold by Chery in China looks suspiciously like our car sold in China, down to the fact our body panels on the Chery car fit a little better than they do on our own car.”

Bricklin’s handlers say the QQ is not one of the five vehicles he plans to bring into the U.S. in 2007.

“These cars are totally new and have nothing to do with the QQ,” said Bricklin spokeswoman Wendi Tush.

Bricklin still must round up 250 dealers willing to “invest everything necessary” to distribute his lineup in the U.S., and who are too young to remember the Yugo.

The first-year sales goal is a hard-to-believe 250,000 units, more than Mercedes-Benz (194,000) or BMW (190,000) sold in the U.S. last year. The five-year target is an even harder-to-swallow 1 million, which would make it a heavyweight contender like a Chevy or Lincoln. Eventually, he sees Chery production in the U.S.

Because both gentlemen will be at the auto show at the same time, maybe they should settle it by arm wrestling.

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