The first products of the Tianjin Auto Repair Works.

We know the Tianjin Auto Repair Works from the Heping saloons made in 1958. People name this factory as developing the first Chinese car. For two reasons, the 1946 Feiying closed three wheel vehicle and the 1951 station wagon.

FEIYING CLOSED THREE-WHEELER

Recently a set of poor quality photos was offered at Kongfz, a kind of Chinese Ebay. They were drawings and photos of the 1946 Feiying (Eagle) three-wheeler.

The Feiying was based on captured Japanese Daihatsu three-wheelers. Ten were shown when the new road from Tianjin to Beijing was opened, one passenger vehicle and nine cargo trucks.

First the original Daihatsu, here is a photo. The Daihatsu’s got a new body.

There are also drawings of different versions, like a convertible version.

Or a pickup.

And there is a photo of a factory worker, we won’t keep it away from you.

STATION WAGON

The second Tianjin product regarded as China’s first motor car is the station wagon built by the same factory, four years later. It was made together with two jeeps and a trolleybus.

This station wagon, based on a 1932 Dodge pickup, was experimentally produced in 1951. It had a 32 horsepower engine and fuel consumption of 16 miles per gallon (17.7 L/ 100km).

This car was exhibited at the North China Trade Exhibition in Tianjin. There are sources that indicate that four were made. Sometimes the car was referred to as “the people’s car”.

The woody was equipped with a home made 4-cylinder engine, named the 5141 engine (1951/4-cylinder/first model). Bore and stroke were about 60 x 100 mm. The body, using the Dodge chassis, was made with help of a 1:8 model.

Ivan Kolev made the wonderful reconstruction drawing, we started our article with it. .

JEEP

The second vehicle made in 1951 was the jeep, which we introduced to you already in our item ‘Jeeps before the BJ212’.

TROLLEY BUS

The third vehicle was a trolley bus.

Like always: please comment! And inform us when you know things not written here! Send us new material!

We leave you here with another picture showing the workers and staff studying the home made engine.