Ford blocks China’s JAC from launching F-150 clone [Update]

The fake F-150 missed its scheduled debut at the Beijing Motor Show.

Chinese automakers are hardly known for their innovative styling, but a pickup truck built by China’s JAC Motors is one of the cleanest copies we’ve seen in a while.

The evidently Ford-inspired JAC 4R3 was scheduled to make its public debut at the Beijing Motor Show late last month, but Ford’s top brass took every necessary measure to stop that from happening.

“There were a couple of press reports that ‘oh’, at the Beijing Auto Show there’s going to be an F-150 clone. It didn’t happen. Not going to happen,” said Bill Coughlin, the president and CEO of Ford’s Global Technologies department, in a televised interview with Autoline.

“We did our job. There was good global teamwork,” Coughlin added. “So, yes, we can protect ourselves in China, it’s not easy, but you can do it. Is it expensive? Not really, I mean, it would be less than filing [in the United States].”

Although Coughlin did not specifically mention this, it is assumed that Chinese authorities have also blocked JAC from producing and selling the car. What remains to be seen is whether or not the decision will be respected.

From head to toe, the 4R3 is almost identical to the Ford F-150 SuperCrew, although JAC is not one of the Michigan automaker’s partners in China. The “spy” photos of the car – which don’t really have the look and feel of typical automotive espionage work – show off such blatant Ford design cues as a tall grille, stepped headlamps and, of course, a blue oval badge.

A Chinese site reports that the 4R3 won’t be much like its Dearborn “cousin” under the hood, however. In place of the big V6 and V8 powertrains that motivate the Real McCoy, the 4R3 will use a 2.8-liter diesel that is said to produce just 108 horsepower and 177 lb-ft. of torque. That’s probably not enough power to move a real F-150, so we imagine that there’s some serious weight shedding going on underneath that Ford-like body.

JAC is a medium-sized Chinese automaker that offers a relatively full range of cars, most of which seem to have been influenced by Japanese and Korean cars.