Landwind

Chinese automotive manufacturer

Landwind was an automobile marque owned by the Chinese automaker Jiangling Motor Holding (JMH), a joint venture between Jiangxi Guokong Automotive Investment Corporation (50%), Jiangling Motors Corporation Group (25%) and Changan Automobile (25%).

Landwind traces its origins back to 1998 when the then chairman of JMCG, Sun Min, established Jiangling Lufeng (Landwind) Automobile Co., Ltd. His intention was to create an independent marque to strengthen JMCG's own technical development and reduce its dependence on Ford and Isuzu. While the cars would be designed by Lufeng, the production would be made on Isuzu's production lines. Ford opposed the project and it eventually was abandoned. Landwinds were on sale by 2002 and the marque was relaunched in November 2004 by Jiangling Motor Holding. The Landwind X5 debuted at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November 2012.

In 2005, when Jiangling Motor Holding registered the marque's English language name as Landwind, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) lodged a complaint before the European Union, alleging the name was too similar to Land Rover. In 2011, the complaint was dismissed. In 2016, JLR sued Jiangling Motor Holding at the Beijing Chaoyang District Court for unfair competition and copyright infringement, as it alleged the Landwind X7 design was a copy of the Range Rover Evoque. In 2019, the Court dismissed the copyright infringement case, as both the Jiangling Holding and JLR intellectual property claims in China for the vehicle had been made improperly and were invalid within the country. As for the unfair competition case, the Court ruled in favour of JLR, and the X7s were temporarily banned from being sold and produced in China, although Jiangling Holding could appeal the verdict. and that the company being sued was Jiangling Motors. Jiangling Motors published a press release denying it was involved in the proceedings. Later, as JLR partially fixed its press release indicating the company it had sued was Jiangling Motor Holding instead of Jiangling Motors, news agency Reuters corrected its newswire on that point, although it did not apologise for not fact checking JLR's information.

In 2019, Landwind only sold about 1,000 vehicles after a high of 80,000 in 2016. By 2020, production of Landwind badged vehicles had ceased and the company has stopped its operations. From 2021, the Landwind factory has been transferred to the Changan Automobile, where the previous co owner of the defunct joint venture had now started manufacturing of its own model, Raeton CC.