The Andong car.

This is the history of the Dandong Auto Works.

The Andong Automobile Refit Works had the guts to make a copy of one of China’s most important cars: the Dongfeng CA71 made by the First Auto Works. It was chairman Mao Zedong himself who had ordered the design and production of the Dongfeng and Mao personally sat in the backseat of the first car on  May 21, 1958.

Let me start the story here. In 1951 the People’s Liberation Army started a repair shop for damaged military vehicles during the Korean War. The workshop was in a border city  named Andong, which name was changed into Dandong in 1965 as Andong (pacifying the east) was regarded as too imperialistic.   The place of the factory was already a machinery works during the Qing dynasty. In 1955 the name of the factory changed into the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army Logistics Department Andong Auto Repair Factory. In 1958 the name was Andong Automobile Repair & Assembly Works. It’s first car was the Jianshe (Construction) 2ton (or 2.5 ton)truck.

In 1960 a second truck followed. This was probably a 4-ton Jiefang copy.

In this period the motor car must have been made. None of the pictures of the car is dated. At least it was before 1965, the photos are still speaking about Andong. It was 1959 that the factory changed its name into Refit Works. A guess would be that the motor car was made in the same year, 1959.

In April 1980 I received a letter from the Dandong Automobile Refit Works telling that they make dumpers, tankers and service trucks.

In the seventies and eighties the factory developed into an important refit factory, using the Jiefang CA10 4 ton truck as a base to construct grain bulk vehicles, fuel oil vehicles, airport oil vehicles, used oil vehicles and
dumpers. Already in the late seventies Dandong was one of the first Chinese automobile manufacturers to print English language sales brochure.

In 1972 Dandong surprised with a bigger home-designed truck: the Liaoning No.3 truck, later named Liaoning DD150. This 12-ton  6×4 truck is the first of a long series of Yalujiang heavy trucks.

In 1981 Oliver Barnham took photos of a blue 8-ton truck, this time named Yalujiang LN151, made in 1980 by the Dandong Automobile Refit Works.

Advertisement Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), 29 April 1982. 

In 1983 the company changes names again, now it is the Dandong Auto Works.

Besides of the trucks Dandong started to produce buses. The company is getting famous for its Huanghai Buses.

What is left is of this era is the old factory, Huanghai Street 544, Zhenxing District in Dandong. The factory is sold in October 2019.

Dandong Auto Works is afterwards bought by the Shuguang Axle Works, in turn bought by Hawtai.