01
Origins
SAIC's Maxus — built on the acquired LDV van business — launched the D90 in 2017 as its passenger flagship: a full-size body-on-frame SUV with seven seats, four-wheel-drive options and a pioneering online configurator ('C2B' customisation) that SAIC promoted as the future of Chinese retail. Petrol and diesel power served domestic and export markets from Australia to the Gulf, where the value-per-metre argument resonated. It established Maxus as more than vans — a genuine multi-line brand within SAIC's portfolio. The D90's configurator experiment proved prescient marketing theatre; its conventional virtues — space, price, warranty — did the actual selling, particularly wherever Toyota's dominance left a budget-sized gap. The LDV acquisition, dismissed at the time, quietly became one of SAIC's better bargains.
Maxus D90 001 · Jengtingchen · CC BY-SA 4.0
