The manufacturer of the body-on-frame SUV known in China as the Hengtian L4600 has stumbled upon serious legal issues, and may end up ditching its Toyota Land Cruiser lookalike.
Zhonghengtian Off-Road Vehicle Co. Ltd., which forms a part of the Hengtian Automobile conglomerate, has failed to produce at least 2,000 annual cars, a condition mandatory for all Chinese carmakers to keep the license. In order to keep the L4600 on the market, the company will have to find a way to increase annual production fast. Failing that, restoring a revoked license of this kind is said to be nearly impossible in China.
The pilot batch of the L4600 rolled off the assembly lines five years ago. The first official photos of the car emerged in last April, and the company had intended to start deliveries later in 2020. However, those plans were never to come true: the manufacturer never finished designing its Land Cruise clone, and keeps sending pre-production test vehicles to the China military and police forces instead.
The car itself is pretty large at 5,089 mm long, 2,026 mm wide and 1,872 mm tall with 2,950 mm between the axles. A 4.6-liter gasoline engine pumps out 286 PS (282 hp / 210 kW) to a six-speed transmission, which can be manual or automatic.