zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Culture
/
That Chinese Electric Classic VW Beetle Knockoff Now Has A Name: The Ora Punk Cat
That Chinese Electric Classic VW Beetle Knockoff Now Has A Name: The Ora Punk Cat-October 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:12:21

Image for article titled That Chinese Electric Classic VW Beetle Knockoff Now Has A Name: The Ora Punk Cat

Judge me all you’d want, but there’s really very little here I don’t like. It’s a shameless knockoff of a 1960s-era Volkswagen Beetle, converted to electric power, stretched to four doors and glammed up an awful lot. It’s irreverent and fun and a bit silly, all things sorely needed in modern car culture. , but now this thing has . Wow.

Yes, the Punk Cat. Great Wall-owned Ora has a thing for naming their cars after cats — one of their other EVs is the Good Cat, and they also sell White and Black Cats. The name for this one was the result of an online poll with five other “cat”-based names, which included “big orange cat,” and “elf cat.”

Image for article titled That Chinese Electric Classic VW Beetle Knockoff Now Has A Name: The Ora Punk Cat

New pictures reveal a very, very classic-Beetle inspired look, with bumper guards that mirror the shape of the ones used from the 1950s to 1967, a remarkably similar hood line (minus the old stiffening/decorative hood stampings) and, well, pretty much everything. This is a Beetle.

The headlights are clearly modeled after used (in the U.S.) until 1966, and I’m going to say that, in a bold move, Ora seems to have been looking at the rare 50/50 Italy and Australia-only taillights as their inspiration for the Punk Cat’s.

Image for article titled That Chinese Electric Classic VW Beetle Knockoff Now Has A Name: The Ora Punk Cat

The interior is even more bonkers and ornate than I realized before.

Image for article titled That Chinese Electric Classic VW Beetle Knockoff Now Has A Name: The Ora Punk Cat

It’s done up in a beach-realtor’s office palette of teals and tans and lavender, and, very much unlike the original Beetle, everything looks to be lavishly padded and/or plated in some kind of shiny brassy metal-like surface.

Image for article titled That Chinese Electric Classic VW Beetle Knockoff Now Has A Name: The Ora Punk Cat

It is, to put it mildly, a hell of a lot. It’s like your eccentric aunt’s apartment after your uncle died and she started working out and tanning a lot and then dating some dude with unsubtle ties to organized crime and now you barely recognize her and, if you’re honest, she scares you, a bit.

I do like those parquet floor mats, though.

Again, there’s about a zero percent chance, roughly, that this will ever enter the U.S. market, but I still like that it exists.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Culture
The Final Dodge Challenger Demon 170 Makes 1,025 HP And Does the 1/4 Mile in 8.91 Seconds
The Final Dodge Challenger Demon 170 Makes 1,025 HP And Does the 1/4 Mile in 8.91 Seconds
Zero to 60 in 1.66 seconds, and more than 2 g at launch. A quarter-mile time of 8.91 seconds at 151.17 mph. Skinny tires up front and steamrollers in the back. An enormous 3.0-liter , the largest ever fitted to a production car. A $96,666 base price. These are...
Oct 29, 2026
Almost Nobody's Ready to Make EV Charging Stations in America Yet
Almost Nobody's Ready to Make EV Charging Stations in America Yet
Electric vehicle and battery makers aren’t the only ones having a tough time navigating the Inflation Reduction Act’s rules to secure subsidies, new car sales are recovering in Europe and Tesla figured out the secret to selling EVs in China — deep discounts. All that and more in this...
Oct 29, 2026
Hyundai Is Sticking with Physical Buttons as the Industry Goes Digital
Hyundai Is Sticking with Physical Buttons as the Industry Goes Digital
The last few years have seen explode in size. It seems like there is a screen-size arms race. Data from the shows the average size of a vehicle screen was 7.7 inches in 2018, and it’s now expected to average 8.4 inches by next year. With those bigger screens...
Oct 29, 2026
Ferrari Customer Data Stolen in Apparent Cyberattack
Ferrari Customer Data Stolen in Apparent Cyberattack
Yesterday, Ferrari revealed a “” — the fun, business-friendly name for a hack. It seems that attackers gained access to, and threatened to release the information unless the company paid up. Ferrari responded by hiring a cybersecurity company to investigate just how the hack went down. The automaker is...
Oct 29, 2026
Audi Is the Latest Carmaker Scrambling to Recover Lost Ground in China
Audi Is the Latest Carmaker Scrambling to Recover Lost Ground in China
Audi has a mess on its hands in China, Volkswagen has a mess on its hands in Russia, and the mess on everybody’s hands — the chip shortage — is actually getting cleaned up these days. All that and more in this edition of for Monday, March 20, 2023....
Oct 29, 2026
Man Wedges Car Into Basement Alley of 165-Year-Old Hotel in England
Man Wedges Car Into Basement Alley of 165-Year-Old Hotel in England
The city of Bath in England is most well known for its Roman Baths and Georgian architecture. The conservation of Bath’s historic buildings has led the southwest English city to be listed as a However, smashing into a structure built before the United States isn’t helping preservation efforts. Early...
Oct 29, 2026
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved