AND then, out of nowhere, there was the Hafei Lobo. Whereas the arrivals of almost all of the new Chinese makes on the South African market have come with at least a degree of forewarning, little-known Hafei has sneaked onto the market without any major announcement.
Its arrival at CAR's offices immediately resulted in a flurry of Googling as we tried to learn more about this mysterious little machine, and its maker.
The story goes somewhat like this. Hafei, a division of a major aircraft company in China, builds a large range of minivans and compact cars. How long it has been doing this is a matter of some debate as no single source mentions the company's age. In any event, the Lobo you see here was first shown in 2002. It is distributed locally by the same group that introduced the GoNow range of pick-ups and SUVs.
But now for a really interesting piece of background information. This awkward-looking little thing was styled by Pininfarina of Ferrari fame… Hmm… Perhaps the stylist in charge handed the job to the secretary to do during lunch time, or maybe Hafei didn't agree on the final design and made some alterations of its own. Needless to say, the Lobo doesn't symbolise this Italian styling house's finest hour. Admittedly, there are some "interesting" design ideas, such as the Fiat Multipla-like A-pillarmounted indicator lights, the triangular rear lamp clusters and an odd "shoulder" that runs along the base of the window line. From outside, the quality of the paintwork looks very acceptable, and the car rides on 13-inch alloy wheels.
Inside, the initial impression is quite positive. The very light upholstery – at first glance – contrasts nicely with the black upper finishes. But on closer inspection the upholstery and carpets were already showing dirt badly. Undoubtedly, a good seat cover and a set of rubber mats would have to be one of your first purchases after buying a Lobo. The instrumentation is centrally mounted – not a CAR favourite layout – and includes smartly styled dials for speed, engine revs and fuel consumption.
But the instrumentation is set too low, so taller drivers have to look far down to view them.
As is the case with most Chinese vehicles that have come our way, the Hafei Lobo's interior suffers from a chemical odour reminiscent of a cheap tekkie shop. It doesn't set your nostrils on fire in the way the Chana Benni does, but is nevertheless unpleasant. We also rate the interior finish as rather "unrefined" – for example, the holes for the ventilation outlets have very rough edges. In fact, there are numerous little "rough spots" throughout the car.
But the Lobo is more spacious than the Chery QQ, for example, boasting good rear leg- and headroom, as well as a boot measuring 168 dm3. With the single-piece rear seat folded down, total utility space is a not unreasonable 880 dm3.
This, the Luxury version, features a standard equipment list that includes air-conditioning, central locking, rear window wash/wipe, front electric windows, power steering, front and rear foglamps and – get this – a radio/cassette player… Notable for their absence are ABS brakes and airbags. This is rather worrying, seeing as the Hafei Lobo has had some interesting press with regard to crash safety – to see what we mean visit http:// www.chinacartimes. com/2008/01/04/hafei-lobocrash- test
The Lobo is powered by a 1,1- litre four-cylinder engine that features double overhead cams and fuel injection. Why the overhead cams, though, because it doesn't rev easily. It delivers 48 kW at 5 700 r/min and 88 N.m of torque between 3 000 and 3 500 r/min. The engine is mated with a five-speed manual transmission that does not provide the smoothest and most accurate shifts around. All our test ers were in agreement that the shift action is sloppy. Out on our test strip we achieved a lethargic zero to 100 km/h time of 17,45 seconds, the rough little engine screaming its lungs out along the way to a 140 km/h top speed.
Even away from the intensity of performance testing, the Lobo's engine appears to be unrefined and noisy, a matter not helped by poor NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) control. Wind noise around the driver's door was excessive at cruising speeds.
Due – in all probability – to a wheel alignment problem, our Lobo's steering wheel was skew and vibrated violently at 100 km/h, but smoothed out again at around 120 km/h. But at least fuel economy is good, the Lobo's fuel index working out at an impressive 6,3 litres/100 km. Despite a the small 40-litre fuel tank, the Hafei Lobo should travel more than 600 km on a single fill-up.
If it all sounds unimpressive so far, then perhaps you'll be surprised to hear that it is our belief that this is dynamically the best of the small Chinese cars we've tested to date!
Thanks to some assistance from Lotus, the Lobo has a far more "planted" feel on the road than some of its compatriots, and a surprisingly cosseting ride quality. The testers were fairly unanimous that – by comparison with the Chery QQ and Chana Benni – the Hafei Lobo feels the least likely to fall over its own, er, wheels. But the brakes are inconsistent. Featuring ventilated discs in front and drums at the rear, the Lobo achieved an average 100 km/h to zero stopping time of 3,56 seconds, which earns it a "poor" rating. But the huge gap between its best stop (3,18 seconds) and worst (4,05 seconds) was reflected on the road, where the brakes would sometimes bite hard, and sometimes not. In the rain, this caused dangerous lockup on a number of occasions.
