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**The Legend of Geely: A Story of Ambition and Innovation**

Would it surprise you if I told you that you've never heard of one of the biggest car companies in the world? I'm talking about Geely. Now, the badge might be only 30 years old, but in that time they've managed to sell millions of cars, win an FIA Manufacturer's Cup, and set a lap record at the Nurburgring.

But how in the world did they go from making janky cars in the 90s to buying Volvo? And what made their founder so mad that he drove a steam roller over an entire lot of cars? Hold onto your sweaty bums' cause we're about to find out. This is everything you need to know to get up to speed on Geely.

**(8-bit music)**

**Chapter One: The Legend of Li**

It all started back in 1963 in a small Chinese village called Zhejiang, where a young boy was born by the name of Li Shufu. Li was an ambitious kid and often said outrageous things to make people laugh. Kind of like me, I can relate.

Li would ride his bike around town, normal kid stuff, take portraits of people and sell them for money. Normal. It was a viable first business for a young entrepreneur. And after that, he took up recycling precious metals, which proved to be more successful than photography. And by 1986, Li was doing what most of us were doing in our early 20s, selling our hugely successful metal recycling business to start a refrigerator company.

This man knows how to make more money, baby! But by the end of the 80s Li was bored with the refrigerator business and donated it to the local government. You know, like you do. Sure he was making money, but he wanted something new, something less competitive.

**The Birth of Geely**

He wanted a market he could really scale up. I'm talking about the car market. Car manufacturing is one of the most competitive markets out there. Yeah, maybe in the US or Europe, but in the 90s in China the market was just starting up.

A few foreign badges had been able to sell cars in China, but there were no privately owned car companies. The Chinese government owned all of them at this point. They sold models that were designed and manufactured in China, but they also sold rebadged foreign cars which were considered exotics. And by exotics I mean second-gen Passats, which sold in China for 29 years.

That's longer than Nolan's whole life. Needless to say many people thought Li was riding the cuckoo train Crazyberg. He even went to a manufacturer who provided parts for Shanghai Volkswagen and was hoping to sign a contract. But when the man in charge heard Li's plan, the dude literally left the room without saying a word. He ghosted him in person.

That's cold, man. That's ice cold. Now despite the overwhelming odds against him, he remained undeterred and felt confident in his ability to design a car. Li said...

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Would it surprise you if I told youthat you've never heardof one of the biggest carcompanies in the world?I'm talking about Geely.Now, the badge might be only 30 years old,but in that time they've managedto sell millions of cars,win an FIA Manufacturer's Cup,and set a lap record at the Nurburgring.But how in the world did they gofrom making janky cars inthe 90s to buying Volvo?And what made their founder so madthat he drove a steam rollerover an entire lot of cars?Hold onto your sweaty bums'cause we're about to find out.This is everything you need to knowto get up to speed on Geely.(8-bit music)Chapter one, the legend of Li.It all started back in 1963in a small Chinese village called,I'm going to say a lotof words wrong here.I'm going to do my bestbut a lot of these are goingto be pronounced wrong.It all started back in 1963in a small Chinese village called Zhejiangwhere a young boy was bornby the name of Li Shufu.Li was an ambitious kidand often said outrageousthings to make people laugh.Kind of like me, I can relate.Li would ride his bike aroundtown, normal kid stuff,take portraits of peopleand sell them for money.Normal.It was a viable first businessfor a young entrepreneur.And after that, he took uprecycling precious metals,which proved to be moresuccessful than photography.And by 1986,Li was doing what most of uswere doing in our early 20s,selling our hugely successfulmetal recycling businessto start a refrigerator company.This man knows how tomake more money, baby.But by the end of the 80sLi was bored with therefrigerator businessand donated it to the local government.You know, like you do.Sure he was making money,but he wanted something new,something less competitive.He wanted a market hecould really scale up.I'm talking about the car market.Car manufacturingis one of the mostcompetitive markets out there.Yeah, maybe in the US or Europe,but in the 90s in China themarket was just starting up.A few foreign badges have beenable to sell cars in Chinabut there were no privatelyowned car companies.The Chinese government ownedall of them at this point.They sold models that were designedand manufactured in China,but they also sold rebadged foreign cardswhich were considered exotics.And by exotics I mean second gen Passats,which sold in China for 29 years.That's longer than Nolan's whole life.Needless to say many people thoughtLi was riding the cuckootrained Crazyberg.He even went to a manufacturerwho provided parts for Shanghai Volkswagenand was hoping to sign a contract.But when the man incharge heard Li's plan,the dude literally left theroom without saying a word.He ghosted him in person.That's cold, man.That's ice cold.Now despite the overwhelmingodds against him,he remained undeterredand felt confident in hisability to design a car.Li said "Cars are just twocouches on four wheels."How hard can it be?"That is a literal quote from the dude.I want to put that on a shirt.Cars are just twocouches with four wheels.Have truer words ever been spoken?I don't know.But since cars were proving difficult,Li went to the next best thing.He bought an old motorcycle factorythat was on the brink of bankruptcyand started producing his own motorcycles,making it the first privatelyowned motorcycle company everin China's whole history.And China has a lot of history.I think there's a restaurant in Chinathat was established in the year four.I'm not making that up.The year four.He named the company Geely,which roughly translates to "propitious",which roughly translates to"indicating a good chance of success".So propitious.Now the "Avengers: End Game" herewas not to keep making motorcycles,but to produce theopposite of a motorcycle.I'm talking about a luxury sedan.There's a problem though.No one at the factoryknew how to make one.So Li bought a Mercedes E280and started taking it apart.He studied and reassembledit piece by pieceto fully understand theprecision of its engineering.Then he bought a differentcar, a Hongqi, (gurgling)to provide the chassis andengine for his prototype,creatively named Geely Number 01.This car, how do you say,was not very good.It looked bad, drovebad, broke down a bunch,and Li quickly realizedthat building a luxurycar for his first carmight not have been theleast ambitious idea.So Li turned his focus to making carsthat everyday Chinesecitizens could afford.I mean, just simply owning a carwas seen as a luxury in China at the time.And even the cheapest cars on the market.I'm talking SuzukiAltos, Daihatsu Chirades,were upwards of $13,000.That's 24K in today's money.Li wanted to make these hatchbacks better,but more importantly he wantedto sell them for cheaper.So like the Mercedes E280,he bought a few Chirades andtook them apart piece by pieceand began to make them his own.Chapter two, a crushing defeat.On August 8th, 1998,the very first production Geelymodel rolled off the line.The Haoqing,which translates to "ambition".Featuring a 1.8 liter Toyota four banger,the same engine as the Chirade,it only made 83 teenage hrsprs.but for such a small hatchit was pretty, pretty,pretty, pretty good.Unfortunately thoughpretty good didn't matterbecause no one bought them.They looked exactly like Daihatsu Chiradesexcept the build quality was worse.The interior was full of hard plastic,the paint was terrible,and there were huge gaps in the panelswhich let water into the cab.Li had a huge premiere partyand only one person showed up.He got so mad that he took a steam rollerand drove over all 100cars that he'd made.That is a true story.That is some Enzo Ferrari type stuff.Down and out but not down for the count,Li did what all of us would do.The dude started makingbuses under the name Boeing.That's until the Boeingcalled him and was like,"Hey man, you can't do that."So he quickly went back to the name Geelyand while going back Lireturned to the drawing board,determined to make his dream, the Haoqing,finally a success.Debuting in 1999,the much improved NewHaoqing started selling.They were infinitely morereliable than the first generationand provided a cheapmeans of transportationto people who in the pastcouldn't afford a cheapmeans of transportation.Geely started turning aprofit and before longthey bought a second factoryand started producinga new model, the Meiri,which translates to♪ It's a beautiful day". ♪I don't like U2.If you like U2 you're allowedto like them, but I don't.Up until this pointGeely had been operatingin a gray area of Chinese law.They weren't fully allowedto produce cars as a private company,but everything changed in 2001,six years after post Malone was born.When China joined theWorld Trade Organization.Geely was now a fullyprivately owned company.Now during this time Geely got to workon building the firstself-developed sports carin Chinese automotive history.It was called the Meirenbao,which translates to"auspicious beauty leopard".It had a 1.5 liter Toyota motorand a five speed manual gearbox,which seems like it could be a decent car,but again, it didn't matter.Toyota, who had been supplying Geely,decided to double the retailprice of their engines,making it financially impossibleto continue with thedevelop of their sports car.So, left with no other choice,Geely began developingan engine of their own,something similar tothe four cylinder designof the Toyota FE.These little Geely econoboxessold like frickin' hotcakesand over the next decade Geelybecame a ubiquitous brand.They were selling 140,000 cars a year.And in 2009 Ford announcedthat they were sellingthe Volvo brand to Geelyfor $1.5 billionwith a B.This was huge news.A company that 10 years beforecouldn't even sell one car was now buyingone of the most recognizablecar brands in the world?Yeah, it seems like a bunch of luck.But what if I told youLi had planned this allout from the very start?Chapter three, Sweden the deal.1.5 billion doll hairs fora legacy car company, Volvo.And in true Li fashion,he let Volvo remainpretty much independentand allowed them to continue designingand producing their owncars with minimal oversight.Sure, it would havebeen more cost efficientto produce Volvos in China,but Li kept the factoriesin Sweden and Belgium open,appeasing the homies at Volvoand all of their unions.In 2010 the deal is finalizedand Geely started using Volvo technologyto make their own cars much, much better.Not only were they able to upgradethe existing Geely econoboxes,but Li was finally able to achievehis lifelong goal ofdeveloping luxury cars.And it couldn't havecome in a better time.Chinese citizens were becoming wealthier.They wanted an affordable luxury carthat could give them,as the kids say, clout.In 2015 Geely debuted the Bo Rui.This large family sedan wasa canceled Volvo conceptthat found a new life with Geely.It features different trimlevels and engine options,including a 1.8 literturbo, a 3.5 liter V6,and a hybrid engine capable of 261 hrsprs.I know, that's not sports car territory,but as we've learned time andtime again it didn't matterbecause Geely was aboutto launch an all new branddedicated entirely to sports cars.Chapter four, a Lynk to the future.In 2016, Geely launched Lynk & Cousing the CMA platform designed by Volvo.So they developed the front wheel drive O3named after the year that Igraduated from high school.This feisty little compactcomes with a few powertrainand transmission options,including a two liter turbo four cylinderthat makes 190 hrsprs.But the hot version, the O3+comes with a 254 horsepowerturbocharged inline fourmade into a seven speed dual clutchwith them frickin' paddle shifty boys.Geely wanted to provetheir sports car brandon a global scale,so they entered an O3 into a racethat Volvo was known for winning.The Touring Car Championships.Using Volvo's connectionsGeely contacted a race teamthat had been working withthe Swedes since 2003.Cyan Racing.You may know them by what theyused to be called, Polestar.(jazzy music)A little history on Cyan.They won a bunch oftouring car championshipsin the late 90s through the early 2000swith some of the sickest Volvos ever.A super touring 850 and an S40,both with five cylinder motors,which are right up therewith my personal faves.And starting in 2018,they used the Lynk & CoO3 as their platform.The Cyan Racing O3 TCR makes 350 hrsprsand helped Cyan win the WTCRManufacturer's Cup in 2019,making the first Chinese companyto win an FIA sanctioned race.And in early 2019 Volvo PerformanceDivision started workingon a 528 hrspr road carconcept of the Lynk O3.And I just want to point outthat this is almost 600horsepower four cylinder motor.Impressive, pretty impressive.Now it was this car drivenby team driver Thed Bjork,which is a sick name, I didn'teven know Thed was a name.Well old Thed did a lap at the Nurburgringin an insane seven minutes and 20 seconds.It broke both the lap recordfor fastest front wheel drive carand the four doorproduction vehicle record.That's frickin' nuts.And that's why we did this episode.You guys need to know who these guys arebecause their future is fast.We learned a lot researching this episode.I was fortunate enough to makea new friend and talk to him.Shouts to Lu Lu.- More power, baby!- More power, baby!- More power, baby!- I think you're better.If you want to learn moreabout Chinese car culture,check out this episode of "Wheelhouse."I love you.