Chana Benni Review

It's certainly lanky with a tall roofline and narrow width to match. Those exterior door guards make little attempt to disguise as such, and you cannot deny its miniature size.

A pleasant surprise greets, courtesy of those projector lamps that come as standard. While those rear brake lights do not utilize LEDs, the three-bulb pattern does a fairly good job at making them seem otherwise. Guess what? The Benni's been styled in Italy.

The Benni also comes with a rear spoiler, front and rear fog lamp at the back and soon, 15-inch shoes on each corner, although our test car come with "size 14s."

While the exterior is rounded and rather modern in a sense, the interior is somewhat contrasting. While it doesn't exactly look dated with those gray fabric seats and silver trimming, it can get a little claustrophobic inside.

Inside

A 170cm tall frame such as yours truly fits comfortably on the front seats - more so than in Chery's rather uncomfortable A1. Though the cushion's still a little flat, I sat in it for three straight hours without complaining. The driving position, though nowhere near perfect, is still designed for homo-sapiens, by homo-sapiens.

Yes, we know it has five doors, but "two plus two" might be the best applied terminology for this little city slicker, especially that the rear windows are manually operated. Although (surprisingly) more commodious than the Chery A1, the rear seats are best left to the kids and vertically challenged, but everyone still gets their own seat belt!

Get this - electric power steering, driver's airbag, front vented disc brakes with ABS and EBD, central locking, 1-DIN stereo/CD and four speakers. The rears part ways in a 60/40 folding fashion, while you get a digital trip meter with fancy day/night light adaptation and a keyless entry system. The only probable thing you might want to go for would be the powered side mirrors.




Driving Impressions

Believe it or not, the same car made a 21 000km international crossing from China, all the way to South Africa. We're not kidding. Daunting rock strewn "roads," temperature extremes of minus 8°C to 53°C and beyond. Well, they must be doing something right then.

Right they are - the Benni has a Suzuki sourced 1.3-litre engine that puts out 84 horsepower at 6500rpm, as well as 110 Nm of torque at just 3500rpm. No it isn't as swift as the er, Swift, but it's much more powerful, and loads faster than the asthmatic Chery A1. Believe it or not, it can be quite pleasant to rev this engine hard.

0-100km/h was G-Teched at 13.81 seconds against a claimed 13.5, and it will go on to about 150km/h. Given its very skinny 165/60 R14s, we wouldn't recommend you go above 120km/h unless you have bigger, 15 inchers for footwear, as will be fitted by this car's dealer in the future.

The engine isn't very refined by today's standards, but it isn't really that bad. Again, it reminds us of the level of refinement those old Hyundai Accents had to offer - not a bad thing.

The notchy five-speed manual feels securely connected to the engine, and it's pretty easy to engage and modulate the clutch as well. Cruising at 100km/h sees around 3000rpm on the tachometer, so it really isn't as short-legged on the highway as you might think.

The brakes bite hard with good pedal feel, and its fuel economy isn't that bad with 10-11km per litre on the scale when driven hard, constantly.

Considerable?

Alright, it's still made in China, but after all is said and trashed, my respect for the Chang 'An (Chana) brand has grown for one big reason - they've bothered. They've designed it in Italy and poured a substantial amount of money into engineering the thing. It passes muster with the European NCAP crash tests, and it's covered by a three-year / 100,000 kilometer warranty.

For a starting price of $35,999 (as of 8-May), it might not be the cheapest Chinese on the market, but it might be one of the few that do not fall apart 3 days after you drive away from the showroom, and certainly much better value than the Chery A1.