Page 64 - The Book For Men Fall/Winter 2023

Fast Forward
Just half a decade since revealing its first model, all- electric Vietnamese carmaker VinFast is expanding internationally
By Jonathan Wells
IT’S THE LATEST CLEAN-RUNNING CARMAKER TO SPEED ONTO the scene; VinFast by name — and even faster by nature — for, even as recently as a decade ago, this now-global car brand simply didn’t exist. The first whispers of its inception (almost as hushed as the marque’s all-electric engines) were heard in early 2017, when a cabal of car designers and industrialists, led by Vingroup founder and billionaire businessman Pham Nhat Vuong, quietly broke ground on a state-of-the- art automotive manufacturing complex on Vietnam’s Red River Delta.
It was a grand undertaking. But the 828 acre industrial park, built on Cat Hai Island, was envisioned and erected specifically to help streamline the car production process. It was to be a place where modern, future-facing cars could be built in their entirety — from
the tire treads up. On the site, you’ll find an engine workshop, assembly lines, press and welding shops, and even paint booths, all built to top-tier specification and completed within just 21 months.
Yet, even as the complex began to turn out cars, Vuong refused to take his foot off the accelerator. At the 2018 Paris Motor Show, barely over a year since the company began, VinFast was unveiled to the world, with its initial, internal-combustion-powered models — the LUX A2.0 saloon and LUX SA2.0 SUV — making award-winning impressions on the global motoring
media. And both of these preliminary models were, in a headline-grabbing reveal, designed by renowned Italian coachbuilder Pininfarina.
This was another show of speed from the electric carmaker, as VinFast certainly wasn’t slow when it came to making friends. Within a year of firing up its engines, the Vietnamese automaker had forged firm links with BMW (for its chassis), the development team at Magna Steyr (which created Mer- cedes-Benz’s “4Matic” all-wheel drive system), and even Chevrolet, with whom the brand launched a rebadged version of the Spark hatchback in Vietnam.
By 2020, VinFast’s cars were cropping up all over the world, with field tests of its rapidly growing fleet taking place everywhere from Cape Town, South Africa, to Victoria, on Australia’s south coast, where the brand bought Holden’s old Lang Lang Proving Ground from General Motors. The carmak- er was even earmarked as the title sponsor for Formula One’s inaugural Vietnamese Grand Prix, before the pandemic put the brakes on the event. Yet, even as other manufacturers’ global operations came to a grinding halt, VinFast didn’t slow down. Attracting talent from other high-profile carmakers, more and more models were put into development, with pick- up trucks, city buses, and even electric scooters joining the brand’s ever expanding model range.
In January 2022, at CES — the trailblazing technology trade show held
64 BFM / FW23 AUTO / FAST FORWARD