Hereford car showroom plan for new SUV brands

Part of a large Hereford car showroom is to be given over to selling two new brands of Chinese-made SUVs.

Hartwell Motors, of Centurion Way off College Road to the northeast of the city, has applied for new signage permission for the southernmost part of its showroom, which mainly deals in Fords.

Running the length of the building front, the new internally illuminated sign panels would measure 24.4 metres across by 1.86 metres high, prominently displaying “Omoda” and “Jaecoo”.

These are both export-only marques of the Chinese manufacturer Chery.

A blend of the German word “Jäger” (hunter) and the English “cool”, the Jaecoo brand launched just a year ago.

Its British and German design teams have “set a new standard for urban off-road SUVs” for “urban elites”, its website says.

Meanwhile the Chery Omoda 5, a compact crossover SUV badged in the UK under the Omoda marque, went into production in 2022, followed this year by an electric-powered equivalent.

Chery has said it aims to sell 1.4 million of the cars overseas by 2030.