Soar Automotive (officially Qingdao SOAR Automotive Group, Ltd.) () is a Chinese
motor vehicle manufacturing company headquartered in
Qingdao. It is specialized in coach building bespoke vehicles including ambulances, police cars, funeral
hearse
A hearse is a large vehicle, originally a horse carriage but later with the introduction of motor vehicles, a car, used to carry the body of a deceased person in a coffin at a funeral, wake, or memorial service. They range from deliberately a ...
s,
limousine
A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment.
A very long wheelbase luxury sedan (with more than four doors) driven by a pr ...
s, courtesy buses and special military vehicles.
Soar was formed in 1991 through the merger of a number of Qingdao-based automotive companies and has produced automobiles since 2001.
Operations
The Soar corporate campus in Qingdao includes 40,000 square meters of buildings.
Around 80 engineers and 180 other professional staff are based at the site.
Products
Soar's products include specialised military vehicles, patient transport vehicles, funeral hearses, bespoke luxury cars, exhibition vehicles and other vehicles for special use.
Soar's early vehicles included the Saint Horse, an open-top fire-fighting vehicle in a 1920s retro style, and a courtesy bus produced under license from
Asquith Mascot Courtesy Bus. Based on the
Ford Transit chassis, the third model was the idiosyncratic Shengma camper van.
Since late 2008, Soar has produced a reinterpretation of the
Rolls-Royce Phantom V
The Rolls-Royce Phantom V is a large four-door limousine produced by Rolls-Royce Limited from 1959 to 1968. Based on the Silver Cloud II, it shares a V8 engine and General Motors Hydra-Matic automatic gearbox with that model. Rolls-Royce ...
, based on the platform of the
Brilliance BS6
The Brilliance BS6, in China sold as Zhonghua Zunchi (), and later as the Brilliance M1 is a mid-sizecar produced by Brilliance Auto in the People's Republic of China. It was originally developed by Italdesign Giugiaro and launched as the Brilli ...
.
It is powered by a Mitsubishi 2.4 litre four-cylinder engine which generates 100 kW and 200 nm.
[
In addition, Soar produces a retro-style funeral hearse based on the platform of the ]Brilliance BS4
The Brilliance BS4 is a four-door compact notchback sedan produced by Brilliance Auto in the People's Republic of China, where it is known as the Zhonghua Junjie. The car was scheduled for launch in Germany, Europe's largest national car marke ...
, and a luxury car also based on the BS4 named SOAR 1 single.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Official Website
(Chinese)
{{Automotive industry in the People's Republic of China
Car manufacturers of China
Bus manufacturers of China
Luxury motor vehicle manufacturers
Manufacturing companies based in Qingdao
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1991
Chinese brands