Start with what the Chery A5 is: a 4-door sedan with 1.6 L SQR477F I4, built from 2006 to 2010, in the decade of stability control, dual-clutch gearboxes and the first serious hybrids. What it meant takes a little longer.
The story
The Chery A5 is a compact sedan produced by the Chinese manufacturer Chery from 2006 to 2010, based on General Motors J platform and facelift of Daewoo Lacetti. This car heavily resembles the Nissan Altima and Maxima, despite being unrelated. A facelifted variant of the A5 called the Cowin 3 was produced from 2010 to 2013.
What is underneath
The engine is 1.6 L SQR477F I4; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 1290 kg. Drive goes through a 5-speed manual / 4-speed automatic. The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 2600 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Its place in the line
In the Chery line-up the Chery A5 has a clear place: it handed the line to the Chery E5; the factory was Wuhu, Anhui, China. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Audi R8, the Nissan Qashqai, the Nissan GT-R. Nearby in the Chery catalogue sit the Chery Arrizo 5 GT and the Chery A1.