China's Zotye Holding Group plans to build the Fiat Lancia Lybra in the Chinese market under the code name JN-X1, while production of the model has been suspended in Italia early in 2005.
Zotye has bought the tooling and intellectual property of Lancia Lybra this May and according to Zotye officials, the company may go further to buy eight or more other Fiat models in future, including Fiat Multipla, to realize its output target of 100,000 vehicles per year
After taking over Jiangnan Auto, Zotye is authorized to produce vehicles covering sedans, SUVs and commercial vehicle. Already with 10,000 SUVs sold in the first five months of this year and helped by the introduction of Lancia Lybra lineup of models the coming year, Zotye has the potential to become a major player in China's auto industry if all of the plans go well.
