The once proud all-American Buick brand is making its second renaissance - albeit away from its birthplace. The Invicta concept is the second Buick concept unveiled in China in the last two years, following from the Riviera concept unveiled at Shanghai last year. As with the Riviera, China has again played a significant role in designing, developing and premiering the car.

The Invicta concept can best be described as a four-door luxury sports coupe, with styling that demonstates a good overall profile and proportions, with massive, waving bodyside surfacing defining the character of the vehicle. And the Invicta also displays a healthy body to DLO ratio, with the robust bodyside volume creating defined, sculpted surfaces with highlights that were clearly visible from far away. However, the further forward than usual A-post position combining with a rather short hood length have taken away the commanding and confident stance in favor of a more dynamic stance.

The interior design of the vehicle was a big surprise, not for its styling theme, but to how close it appears to be to production. While there is no official comment on the Invicta's production fate, there were more than enough clues in the door trims, angle of the center LDC screen, steering wheels and even the seats to cautiously forecast a production version in the near future.

Meaning 'Invincible' in Latin, the Buick Invicta concept is making its return after 45 year hibernation. Just like the resurrection of the concept car's name, the renaissance of the Buick brand will happen for sure, and there is a good chance that it will be from half way around the world from where it all began.

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The YFV is an interesting compact speedster proposal designed by Yanfeng Visteon's Shanghai design studio, based on an existing mid-engined production car in China. The exterior design consists of the harmonization of two counter elements: soft sculptural forms covering hard structural frames. This is expressed by the front center plexiglass stripe that gradually flares out in a wine glass shape and transforms into the windscreen and side windows and a series of sinuous lines that flow around the car. The dark plexiglass continues in two extended roll bar hoops to cover the rear tail lamps.

Studio chief Shizuki Kajiyama explained to CDN that "The concept is targeted to China's 'Me' generation - that is, style-conscious youngsters between 25-30 years. The design aims to express the nimbleness of a skilled ping-pong player with the calmness of T'ai Chi".

The carbon-fiber structure is exposed in many areas, including much of the interior, where softer areas are trimmed in red and black smooth suede. Accessed by scissor-type doors, the interior is also notable for the incorporation of 3M's virtual 3D technology used in the main instrument cluster and displays in the center console and steering wheel, where images appear to ‘float' outside the actual 2D surface. While the design and quality of the hard model were very professional, the dark grey candyflare body color diluted the strong graphic theme and made the car somewhat difficult to photograph.

Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group (GAIG) has strategic partnership with Honda since 2000, quickly moving up and establishing itself as one of the top five domestic brands. However, with fast changing times and accumulated experience in the automotive business, many Chinese domestic manufacturers are trying free themselves from being merely an affixation to the more established overseas brands. The two CabrioCoupe and 4-DoorCoupe concepts revealed at the Auto China 2008 is Guangzhou's first serious attempt to gain that identity.

The overall design of the CabrioCoupe is well refined and abstains from the extreme proportions seen on other concepts, with main emphasis on its retractable hardtop roof technology. A three-piece folding roof allows for sleeker greenhouse compared to other CCs. A robust bodyside character line, running from the taillamp all the way to the front, makes a sudden nosedive at the front air dam, creating a nice Y-shape flow. Its front face is similar to the old Accord, with slanted headlamps supporting the long, slim grille.

The four-door version shares the same front end and side character line, but has a different grille, very slim DLO and almost non-existent boot area. Though it has a fast, coupe profile, weak surface volume around the sill area and rather steep ramp angle causes the vehicle to 'float' visually and fails to establish a solid stance. Details like the flowing, organic 'Chinese Character' lines divide both the headlamp/taillamp sections and a two-tone starfish-like alloy wheel design adds interest to the overall mixture.

Like many of the other cars at the show, the two GAIG concepts are competent designs, but miss out on refinement of the surface volume, have ambiguous unfinished detailing, and were truly a disappointment. Still, continuous improvement of this magnitude by the Chinese should be a sign of things to come in the future.