Chinese Car Brands that Time Forgot – Zhenjiang Auto Works

Today in Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot (CCBTTF™): Zhenjiang Automobile Works.

Zhenjiang Automobile Works (ZAW), based northwest of Nanjing in Zhenjiang city, potentially has a rather long history that dates back to as early as 1958 according to this Zhenjiang History website. However, we will have to fastforward to 1973 because we simply have no information on the company before this time.

In 1973 Nanjing Auto Works (NAW) decided to set up a factory in Zhenjiang to manufacture military vehicles with investment in the new factory coming to 2.7878 million RMB, a lot of money at the time. In 1974 ZAW was created and a year later in 1975 the first three vehicles rolled off the production line as a test batch.

One of the vehicles that ZAW would come to produce was the Nanjing Yuejin NJ221 military off roader. Think of this as the Chinese equivalent to the Russian UAZ-452 and you’d be on the right track. There was another vehicle produced by ZAW – the Nanjing Yuejin NJ220. I’m not sure what the NJ220 was because I couldn’t find any photos of one.

In 1975 these three test vehicles were taken on a 20,000 kilometer test drive by the People’s Liberation Army General Logistics Department Ordinance Equipment Department (PLAGLDOED) and the first Ministry of Industry Automobile Bureau (MIAB). They tested the vehicles in the extremely cold borderlands in the north of China and found that they were good and that the PLA would like some. Starting in 1976, Zhenjiang products were introduced into the PLA’s fleet.

In 1977 ZAW went shifted into a buying frenzy and bough or produced 120 pieces of equipment, 300 moldings and spent 400 thousand RMB on hydraulic presses. They also brought in more than 30 specialists and technicians. Sadly by 1978 they were equipped to produce way more than they could sell to the army alone. So ZAW decided to produce a new vehicle called the ZJ120.

This is the ZJ120. Actually this is a refrigerator truck based on the ZJ120 because we couldn’t find a picture of an original ZJ120. ZAW actually had a lot of other companies and subsidiaries by the 1980’s that made everything from rims to these refrigerator trucks. The refrigerator trucks were equipped with equipment from the American company Thermo King. According to a friend, Zhenjiang was the first Chinese car company to produce refrigerator trucks and was renowned throughout the country for their products.

The ZJ120 was also put through a tough endurance test by being driven 50,000 km along the road from Beijing to Hainan. Ok, the distance from Beijing to Hainan is around 2,500km so they must have taken the long  way down. In 1980 ZAW produced the ZJ120B dual cab pickup for Shanghai Baoshan Steel company.

Here we have another ZJ120 based vehicle – this time a works vehicle for power companies called the ZJ120DS. The ZJ120DS won the design award at the 1983 National Special Purpose Vehicle trade fair.

Zhenjiang’s refrigerator truck division also produced a truck on the Beijing BJ130 (Toyota Dyna) platform. Given that the BJ130 was produced by dozens of other companies it is possible that ZAW also produced their own version, though there is no reference to a regular ZJ130 in literature that we could find. It is likely therefore that Zhenjiang acquired assembled cab chassis 130’s from another manufacturer and added the box on the back. This was common amongst specialist vehicle manufacturing companies.

Going up another size we get to the ZJ140 – Zhenjiang’s own version of the Dongfeng EQ140.

Of course there was a refrigerator truck version too!

It seems that this is not a refrigerator truck, rather it is a “cool storage truck” for lack of a better term, that is, it was designed to keep things cold…ish.

This is a refrigerator truck – you can tell because of the refrigerator unit above the cab that all the other trucks had, but the previous one didn’t. Here I must deviate slightly for a moment to discuss this and the previous truck… they are Romanian Roman trucks. You see, at some point in the latter half of the last century China and Romania were like best friends so Romania agreed to set up a truck factory in China. The trucks they made were these Roman trucks, but I won’t cover them in detail for now… we’ll leave them for a later article.

Now we move into the 200’s with the ZJ220 series. Pictured above is a ZJ220B. It appears to be a 2Wd variant as I can’t see a diff pumpkin on the front axle. The 220 series was later sold under the Shenye 神野 brand name, though still made by Zhenjiang.

Now, the ZJ220 series of vehicles was based on the NJ221 military van so it had quite substantial underpinnings. These strong bones earned the ZJ220 series a good reputation, with one saving the day when a hydroelectric project was snowed in and the mighty ZJ220C was able to drive 420km to deliver supplies.

This is the logo that was used for the Shenye brand.

A red ZJ220B. The ZJ220 series seem to have been available with petrol or diesel engines. The petrol engine had the designation ’70L’ making around 80hp. Rather unusually, the 220 had a higher top speed than the 120! A whopping 92km/h to the 120’s pitiful 85km/h.

The pickup version of the ZJ220 was called ZJ220C. Drivetrain was the same as the B. In the above photo we have a 2Wd version.

Here we have another example in a different shade of blue. Rather weirdly they decided to rotate the image so that it appears to be RHD. Tycho has a copy of the book that this photo came from and it is printed just like this. Very strange indeed…

I was able to find photos of only one ZJ220 in more recent years – 2008 to be precise on an FB life thread. The car was a 1987 example and the original poster had said he had plans to restore the car but parts were extremely hard to find. He also mentions that this particular car had a 6 cylinder engine, though no engine pictures were present in the thread. Recent efforts to contact him have been fruitless but we hope he did save it! A friend told me very recently that there is one for sale in Shijiazhuang. This is definitely something I will look into more!

Before we move on from the 220 series I simply have to share this picture. This is the ZJ220DYK and it was produced for a very specific purpose – Scientific Inspection! I’m sure there’s probably a better way to translate this but it’s the best I could do. Here are the characters 科学专察车.

In later years Zhenjiang had a change in their model designations. Rather than starting with ZJ they began to use ZJZ. I couldn’t find a reason for this change but they also completely changed their model number scheme.

As an example, this was called the ZJ220C before the change. After the change it became the ZJZ2040H2LS… messy indeed. Zhenjiang was not alone in this weird name changing business, a lot of other companies went through similar changes.

This small pickup was called the ZJZ1040H1S. It was RWD and smaller than the ZJZ2040H2Ls which was also available with 4WD. It is likely that there was a Beijing chassis underpinning this truck or perhaps the old ZJ120 platform.

One of the more stylish cars made by Zhenjiang was the ZJZ2040DH1S, just look at those hubcaps! This style of hubcaps were especially popular from the 1980’s right up until the early 2000’s, especially on public buses. This ZJZ2040DH1S was a 4WD pickup.

Finally we end with this beauty – the ZJZ6650DBY2 rolling chassis. The production and selling of rolling chassis’s was common back in the day and even to this day, allowing specialist companies to build specialist vehicles on top of existing and proven engineering. Strangely it doesn’t appear that Zhenjiang themselves used this chassis for anything.

In 1984 ZAW underwent a massive renovation and consolidation of its various subsidies, with some redundant ones being shut down and new ones opening. Production capacity also increased. Between 1978 and 1985 ZAW produced a total of 2763 light vehicles. We don’t have much information on the fate of ZAW after 1985 but they seem to have kept going for at least a few years. Actually the Shenye brand seems to have continued well into the 2000’s making all sorts of trucks and buses that really weren’t anything different from what every other manufacturer was making… except for one!

**Updated 27/03/2018**

This is the Shenye ZJZ3250F, introduced in 2000. Or to our American friends, the International 7400. Now, this is not some half baked copy of an International, this IS an International through and through with an International Harvester HT530 inline six cylinder, 8.7 liter diesel engine making around 280hp. On this website they make no attempts to cover up the fact that this truck is likely entirely imported, with engine manufacturer and chassis manufacturer details clearly stating that they were made by International. From this website we find out that indeed these trucks were produced from knockdown kits.

Here we have another International – the ZJZ4161FW1.

I managed to find an original brochure for this truck!

And another – the ZJZ4256DCZ5AZ3. On this site we find a clue – the use of 北汽 (Beijing Auto Works) in the company name. The manufacturer was still Zhenjiang but Beijing had become involved in Shenye by the 2000’s.

Could it be that International and Beijing were in talks to produce trucks in China? Or perhaps International was talking with Zhenjiang directly? If anyone has any info on this subject please get in touch!

For now we end the story of Zhenjiang here, to see more of there more recent products you can check out these websites (note for the second link you must choose one of the categories below 神野全部车辆类型).

ZJ220 in 2008 (FBlife)

Tuhu

NJ221B