Asides

The MG 7L, a Chinese take on a British classic

This magnificent machine is an MG 7L. For those of you who don’t know, when MG Rover went bust Nanjing Auto and SAIC were in a heated battle to get the brands. Nanjing ended up getting the most and made cars based on the 75/ZT badged as MG’s and SAIC obtained enough from the sale to make Rover Roewe badged cars based on the same platform. So yes, at one point there were two different companies making essentially the same car just 300km apart. Eventually someone realized this was a bit silly and SAIC ended up buying Nanjing Auto in 2007.

Continue reading “The MG 7L, a Chinese take on a British classic”

The Soyat NJ7150, a modernized SEAT Ibiza

This is a 2005 Nanjing NJ7150 Soyat, seen in an area of Wuxi with lots of smaller car dealers and repair shops. Interestingly this place is only a kilometer or two away from the factory where this very car was made 12 years ago! The NJ7150 was an updated version of the original NJ6400.

The NJ7150 was only made between 2004 and 2006 and is a very rare beast outside its native Wuxi, although I have seen one as far away as Taiyuan in Shanxi province. Nanjing Auto got the tooling for the Ibiza in a deal made in the late 1990’s and made cars using it beginning in 1999 with the NJ6400.

Continue reading “The Soyat NJ7150, a modernized SEAT Ibiza”

The FAW CA6440UA is a Chinese Austin Maestro van

This is a First Auto Works (FAW) LuBao CA6440UA, also known as the Chinese made Austin Maestro van. A successor to the far rarer Etsong series of Maestro based cars, really just the same cars with different badging made between 2000 and 2003.

FAW took over operations in 2003 and this car appears to have been one of the first off the line under their ownership as the vin number reveals it is a 2003 built car! This particular car is in Wuxi.

Continue reading “The FAW CA6440UA is a Chinese Austin Maestro van”