Today in Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong (CCPDoG™): Guangdong Passenger Car Factory, a company based in the great city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province.
They produced a series of small buses and pickup trucks under their own Gaodeng (高登) name, using the English brand name ‘Golden’, and the designation GDK.
In addition to that they made at least two cars under the under the infamous Guangdong scheme in the 1990’s. Read all the details about it here.
Under this scheme Guangdong Passenger Car Factory would be approached by a third-party company to ‘manufacture’ cars, using Guangdong Passenger Car Factory’s car-making license.
These cars weren’t really manufactured. Companies would send a shipment of cars to China. The cars would miss some crucial parts like the wheels, mirrors, or door handles. This was enough to classify these cars as car parts, avoiding the import taxes.
Companies would then send the missing parts in another container. Both containers would end up in a shed in Guangdong were they would be reunited into a working car and could be sold as a China-made vehicle, netting huge profits for everybody involved.
Usually, there would be a Guangdong company which did the assembly, a Hong Kong company that took care of the money, another Hong Kong company that orchestrated the whole thing, and a trader or car company that delivered the original vehicles.
The trader could be a completely independent entity, working without any backing or even knowledge by the vehicle’s manufacturer.
But manufacturers were involved too, using a web of shell companies to get their cars into China. Most notorious were Japanese and Taiwanese auto makers, operating on a thin edge between legal and illegal.
The biggest obstacle for the whole scheme was that every company that wanted to make cars in China, no matter how much ‘making’ they really did, needed an official car-making license by the central government.
The government however would not give a license to a misty Guangdong business, so the scheming companies had to find an existing car maker with a car making license to piggyback on. One of those car makers was Guangdong Passenger Car Factory.
The known cars are:
1. Honda Odyssey (RA1). Designation: GDK6481A.
2. Nissan Quest (V40). Designation: GDK6480.
Guangdong Passenger Car Factory used the Chinese Gaodeng name for these cars, but there were no Gaodeng badges or logos on the vehicles themselves. So the cars would be called Gaodeng Honda Odyssey and Gaodeng Nissan Quest. They didn’t use the English Golden name.
The first generation RA1 Honda Odyssey was manufactured in Japan from 1994 until 1998. ‘Assembly’ at Guangdong Passenger Car Factory started in 1996 using the designation GDK6481A.
Top to bottom: Original Odyssey badge, GDK6481A, and in Chinese: Guangdong Passenger Car Factory.
Based on details such as bumpers and license plate area the Gaodeng Odyssey appears to be the North American variant (wiki) of the RA1, as opposed to the international variant (wiki).
That indicates that the Gaodeng Odyssey’s were originally intended for the North American market, and somehow diverted to China. It is also possible that they did indeed arrive in North America first, and were consequently shipped on to China.
Column mounted shifter.
The V40 first generation Nissan Quest was made from 1992 until 1998, alongside its sister model the Mercury Villager. In China these two cars have a somewhat complicated history. They were assembled by a few companies under the Guangdong scheme.
And the curious thing is: it seems that these companies made both the Nissan and the Mercury. Sometimes the companies messed it up, mixing elements of both cars into a sort of Nissan-Mercury Frankenstein.
Here we have a vehicle with a Mercury grille, a Mercury logo in the grille, and above that an upside-down Nissan badge.
On the rear on the right a Quest badge and a Guangdong Passenger Car Factory badge.
GXE was a Nissan trim level. Below that the GDK6480 designation badge.
Nissan logo on the wheel.
Another car with a Nissan grille, and an exceptionally large Nissan logo on the bonnet.
A third car with the Quest badge on the left, and below that a Guangdong Passenger Car Factory badge.
They are all different. And this indeed shows one more what a total mess the Guangdong scheme really was. There wasn’t any planning, there wasn’t a strategy. Cars were re-badged and sold on as they arrived, without any attention for details. What a great time it must have been!
And that was Guangdong Passenger Car Factory’s contribution to the Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong. If you want to research this interesting company; here are a few starting points:
Guangdong Passenger Car Factory: 广东省客车厂.
Designation: GDK.
Brand: Gaodeng (高登, Golden).
Images:
Blue Odyssey: Xarng.
Red Quest: Mankit.
Archive, period books.
More CCPDoG soon!