There's used to be only one Chinese-made car you could buy in the US - and we drove it

I was a broken record. For years, I said that it would be impossible for Chinese carmakers to crack into the US market, following the example of the Japanese and the South Koreans.

I had good justification for this extreme view: there's no room.

Simply put, there's was no market share to take in the US. And the old game of coming in with a great car in a segment that had been neglected or abjured - fuel-sipping Hondas in the 1970s, reliable family sedans in the 1980s, small SUVs in the 1990s, hybrid drivetrains in the 2000s - wasn't going to work.

Competing on price, as Hyundai and Kia had, wasn't really an option, either, as all the automakers selling cars in America had greatly improved their offerings on that front. You no longer needed to spend very much to get a lot of car.

Then in the midst of the financial crisis, Ford decided to streamline itself and shed its premium brands.

Geely makes its move

Among these were Volvo - the no-nonsense, yet romantic Swedish brand beloved by Los Angeles hipsters and hidebound preppies. A rare opportunity presented itself to international carmakers with aims to enter the US market.

Auto brands almost never go up for sale. More often, they fade away - or are swiftly executed. When Ford was selling Volvo, GM was also trying to unload Hummer, Saturn, and Saab.

Enter Geely, a major Chinese automaker that jumped at the chance to buy a luxury brand, paying almost $2 billion for it in 2010.

Since then, we've been waiting to see what a Chinese-built car from a Swedish brand would be like. When one finally landed on American shores, I was especially intrigued.

The long-wheel base S60 Inscription sedan was the only Chinese-made car on sale in America. But the Buick Envision arrived in 2016, and I drove it to Detroit, an nice big road trip that gave me the chance to get to know the vehicle better. Look for a review soon.

In any case, we sampled a 2016 S60 Inscription "Platinum" in 2015. Business Insider's Ben Zhang lent an assist, driving it in sporty fashion, while I used the car as a limo to chauffeur around a bunch of tweenage friends of my daughter for a weekend.

We thought it as worth a look back, now that number of Chinese-made cars in the US market has doubled: