General Motors is said to be considering legal action against Jiangling Motors, one of Ford Motor Company’s Chinese partners, over what GM believes is a copy of the front-end design of the discontinued Frontera SUV.

The design of Jiangling's Land Wind SUV, imported into Europe by a German dealer consortium, is claimed to be too closely derived from the Frontera, assembled by IBC in Luton from an Isuzu design until two years ago.

The Financial Times says GMIt has asked its legal department to consider legal action, but no decision has been made and GM has not so far issued any statement on the subject.

A complication for any legal action on the matter would be that GM's own joint venture partner SAIC holds a stake in Jiangling, which in turn does not itself assemble the Land Wind. This is done by a sister company owned by a Chinese local government body. Jiangling is a joint venture partner with Isuzu, GM’s associate partner in Japan, which originally designed the Frontera.

Jiangling denies copying anything from GM.