About the History of Cars in China
In the 2000s, Geely was concept car crazy. On most auto shows, the brand would launch up to ten (10) concept cars, packed into the booth, next to the production cars. One of the most interesting cars from Geely’s golden concept era was the Geely Meirenbao II (美人豹II), a concept for a successor of the Meirenbao sports car.
Continue reading “China Concept Cars: The 2007 Geely Meirenbao II”
Today in Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong (CCPDoG™): Beijing Zhonglian. Earlier, we saw their normal cars.
CCCPDoG was a ‘creative’ scheme to get around China’s extremely high import tariffs for foreign-made cars in the late 1990s. Several companies would collaborate to ‘produce’ cars in China, piggybacking on an existing Chinese car maker with a valid car-making license.
Continue reading “Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong: Beijing Zhonglian”
Today in Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot (CCBTTF™): Beijing Zhonglian. In the 1990s and early 2000s, this brand made a bus, a series of SUVs, and a couple of minicars.
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Today in China Concept Cars (CCC): the Haima Me and MPe electric minicars. The Me debuted at the 2008 Beijing Auto Show and the MPe debuted one year later at the 2009 Shanghai Auto Show.
Continue reading “China Concept Cars: The Haima Fstar Me & Haima MPe Electric Minicars”
Our history begins in late 1999, where Li Shutong, younger brother of the renown Li Shufu who has founded Geely, decided to take a different path and ends up founding his own car company JM Star (Shanghai Jieshida Group – 上海杰士达集团). An issue arised, that many of our long-time readers might expected – nation-wide licence to produce cars. Without it, you run into the issue of not being to sell cars outside of the home province, which is obviously very limiting.
Continue reading “Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot: Shanghai Maple”
Today in China Concept Cars: the Hongqi C601 sedan. In the early 2000s, Hongqi was looking for a new mid-size luxury sedan. To get there, they developed four concept cars under the C601 code name. These were:
Continue reading “China Concept Cars: The Story Of The Hongqi C601 Sedan”
Today we take a deep dive into the Chinese Hummer program. Like so many other countries, China got interested in an HMMWV-like vehicle after the first Gulf War. We take a look at four Chinese Hummer programs. China being China, each of these programs has a base model + dozens and dozens of derivative military and civilian variants.
Continue reading “Chinese Hummers Part 1: The Dongfeng Warrior & The Shenfei Falcon”
Today in China Concept Cars (CCC): the Chery Fulwin II Coupe, a sporty two-door concept car that debuted at the 2006 Beijing Auto Show. It was an important car for Chery as it marked the debut of a new design language and the debut of the new Fulwin 2 series.
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Today in China China Concept Cars: three concepts based on the Hongqi HQ3 and Hongqi Shengshi sedan: a bulletproof extended limousine, an extended version, and an open-top inspection car.
Continue reading “China Concept Cars: The Hongqi HQ3/Shengshi Extended Limousines & Inspection Car”
In the late 2000’s China started to get serious about electric cars. Many Chinese automakers launched concept cars and small-series EVs for demonstration projects. One of these car makers was Brilliance Automotive. In 2009 they unveiled an attractive electric concept car, followed by a follow-up concept in 2011.
Continue reading “China Concept Cars: The 2009 & 2011 Brilliance EV Concept Cars”