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Every decade has its defining cars, models including the 'E30' BMW 3 Series in the 1980s; the Subaru Impreza WRX in the 1990s; the BMW Mini in the 2000s; and the Tesla Model S in the 2010s.

The current decade? We'll leave history to decide that, but the Jaecoo 7 could certainly number among the models most associated with the period.

From a standing start in March 2025 to the end of the year, just over 26,000 Jaecoo 7s were sold. More than half were bought by private buyers, making the model the fourth-most-popular retail car, as distinct from fleet car, and helping to propel the brand to a market share of 1.4%. To put that into perspective, Seat's market share was 1.14% and Suzuki's 0.9%.

Selling the Chinese newcomer and Range Rover Evoque-cum-Velar lookalike must surely have been like shelling peas.

Every car salesperson dreams of such a product. In my day, when I was selling Mitsubishis in the 1980s, the Colt 1500 automatic with power steering and Shogun LWB 2.3 and 2.5TD were our 'pea shellers'.

To understand what it was like selling the Jaecoo 7 in those heady months of 2025, I've come to Auto West London, an Omoda-Jaecoo dealership off the busy Hogarth Roundabout in Chiswick.

Was it really just a case of asking customers to form an orderly queue and someone would take their order? "I love that phrase, 'like shelling peas', but it took and continues to take a lot more effort than that," says Sadek Hossain, retail marketing specialist at Omoda-Jaecoo.

"No one's ever going to come into a showroom and say: 'I'll have that one.' So a lot of credit is due our retail network. There's no complacency. This year we face higher targets and even greater effort."

Coincidentally, Auto West London mirrors Omoda-Jaecoo's rapid rise in the UK. Four years ago, the building it occupies was home to a Tesla showroom before the American company vacated it. There it sat beside one of London's busiest roundabouts, unused and unloved until Cetas Automotive, the Turkish dealer group that owns Auto West, acquired it last year. From then, it was all hands on deck as, over a period of 10 weeks, contractors and staff made the place ready for business.

"March 2025 was our first month of trading," says Steve Young, managing director of Auto West. "It took an incredible effort by everyone to get to that point. Prior to our arrival, the building had been repeatedly raided by thieves, who stripped it of everything. There was nothing. I remember having meetings here on garden chairs, with laptops on our knees."

Young, a veteran of the motor industry – he started as a student engineer before moving to purchasing, manufacturing, distribution and ultimately to retail – describes his first year with what he calls 'OJ' (Omoda-Jaecoo) as one of his best and most fun. "It was fun because if you have a commercial mind, it's fun to build a business, to work with a well-funded investor, a motivated team and enthusiastic customers."

He recalls, early on, asking one of his sales staff how many cars he thought they would sell in their first year. "I thought we'd have to sell some real volume to cover our costs so assumed 350. My colleague guessed 250. We actually did 500 from the end of March to December, split 60/40 Jaecoo/Omoda and with the Jaecoo 7 PHEV accounting for 30% of our sales," says Young.

While I don't doubt Hossain's claim that Omoda-Jaecoo's success was down to hard work, there must also have been some darned good deals on the table. People don't just walk into a showroom and buy without encouragement.

"In that first year, it was left to the good business sense of the dealers to operate well and get the cars out of the door," concedes Young. "There were strong incentives and margins were on the generous side. All the dealers took advantage of this to get the volumes up."

Then there was Jaecoo's 'more car for your money' argument. Most of Young's sales team come from premium brands where, before they joined him, they'd had to tell customers the monthly PCP payment on their next car was now a couple of hundred pounds more than they had been paying. Most customers weren't impressed.

"People have seen the inflation in car prices and many are saying: 'I'm not sure about this. I can afford it but do I have to pay this much for a quality car?" explains Young. "They came to us and found they could get the same quality and even more features for what they were currently paying. Maybe not the same thing from a handling perspective but how many people care about that in their ordinary, day-to-day driving?"

How true that last statement turns out to be will lie in the number of first owners who return for their second Jaecoo or Omoda. By that time, there should be a decent supply of used Omodas and Jaecoos too and, as anyone in the trade will tell you, if you don't have a flourishing market for your used cars, you soon won't have one for your new cars...

Meanwhile, as Omoda-Jaecoo embarks on its second year, Young expects its discounts and processes to be tightened: "Already, things have become a lot more sophisticated. Mystery shopping is a good example. We are now regularly mystery-shopped on various aspects of the business. We're targeted to sell 1200 cars this year too."