Berlin - The wraps will come off the new Borgward sports utility at next month’s Frankfurt Motor Show, German car journal Auto Motor und Sport reports.
The first new Borgward for 50 years is designed to spearhead the revival of the defunct German marque. It will be built in China and will go on sale in China in 2016, before being offered in India and Brazil. No firm date has been announced for a European debut.
Borgward director Ulrich Walker said production was poised to get under way.
“Our factory in Beijing is ready to roll, with the plant turning out engines,” Walker told the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper.
Measuring 4.60 metres from front to back, the Borgward SUV is around 10 centimetres longer than the Audi Q5 – one of its major rivals, said Auto Motor und Sport.
Borgward has said it will invest 250 million euros (R3.55bn) to set up a head office with a research and development unit in Stuttgart, Germany, where Daimler and Porsche are both based.
BIG AMBITIONS
The Chinese-financed venture reportedly aims to build 800 000 cars annually by the end of the decade.
The German partners behind the Borgward revival are Christian Borgward, the grandson of founder Carl F W Borgward, and his
associate Karlheinz Knoess.
“Relaunching Borgward is a childhood dream which is about to become a reality,” grandson Borgward told Auto Motor und Sport.
Around 2000 technical people are involved in development, most of them working in China, the venture says.
The first Borgward company, based in the northern German port of Bremen, went out of business in 1963. It produced saloons and coupes in the days before the SUV category was invented.
DPA