Alongside Geely, comrades Landwind and Brilliance are showing off their models next to established German giants Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen. They might be only the second tier of Chinese mass producers, like the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., but they're determined to enter the European market.

Brilliance has a new sedan out for $22,000. Landwind at the IAA is marketing a sports utility vehicle modeled after an older Opel Frontera. While it might not look and drive like the real Opel, or its big brothers from VW and Mercedes, its price tag settles at $21,000, roughly half of what the competition costs. Saving $20,000 on a four-wheel-drive might win over even the usually conservative Germans.

These days, anything coming from the People's Republic of China, a country with very low wages and an ability to quickly adapt to market fluctuations is likely to create some unrest with producers in Germany. Rattled by rising fuel prices, high non-wage labor costs and declining sales, German carmakers are in somewhat of a crisis. The last thing they need is country with a cheap workforce.

Observers warn Western carmakers to get ready for increased competition from China. Underestimating the East Asians, as happened before the Japanese and Koreans drove their models into Europe, would be a fatal mistake, analysts say.

"We do take them seriously," Eckehardt Rotter, spokesman of the German Union of Automobile Makers, or VDA, told United Press International. "The Chinese have formulated a will to expand their exports. And if they say that, than they'll keep their promise."

The first pressure on the German market will likely come in the budget car sector, which is at the moment dominated by Asian car makers such as Daewoo and Toyota, and by German car giant Volkswagen. While the Chinese price tag might be attractive, there are other factors that are taken into account by customers when purchasing a car, Rotter said.

"A low price is not everything. A car is no commodity, it has emotional value," he said. "What about image, technology, resale value, ecological standards and security?"

The European Union's security standards might be the biggest hurdle for the Landwind SUV to generate sales: It might not even be allowed on the market, experts say. The German Motoring Association, or ADAC, is Germany's and probably the world's best automobile testing group. ADAC specialists carried out a crash test with the Landwind in the ADAC's testing center in Landsberg, Bavaria. The result was catastrophic, the group said.

"That's the most unsafe car we have tested in, well, at least 20 years," Hubert Paulus, security expert at the ADAC, told UPI. "When the Landwind hit the wall, its chassis, especially the driver's cell, deformed so radically, that we had trouble getting out the dummy afterward. Its body and head were pierced by metal parts from the chassis. I mean, what are they thinking, we can't have our death toll on the streets rise."

The ADAC performs its crash tests at 36 mph. In order to get a European Union selling license, the Landwind will have to perform much better to make the cut at the EU's crash test, which is held at 32 mph, he said.

"If you ask me, the Landwind will fail that test as well," Paulus said. "They will likely have to remodel their chassis."

Karsten Gerhardt, car sector analyst at Germay's IKB bank, said the carmakers at the IAA, with their yearly output between 30,000 and 60,000, are not yet a real threat to German carmakers. Rather, they will compete with the "European used cars."

But short-term setbacks like the security shortcomings of the Landwind will likely be overcome in the long run, he said.

"The Chinese have an incredible ability to adapt quickly," he said." If their current models are not up to the standards, then tomorrow or - at the latest -- the day after tomorrow, they'll come with improved ones."

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