The Changfeng Acumen cars.

From 2007 till 2012 Changfeng Liebao developed and even produced some cars. The project was unsuccessful and was finally sold to Zhongxing.

Changfeng, also named Changfeng Liebao or Liebao, was established in 1965 as the  People’s Liberation Army Factory 7319 in Lengshuitan (near Yongzhou City), Hunan Province. Liebao in English is Cheetah.

In 1984 this factory started automobile production and made in 1987 38 jeeps named CC0209.
Changfeng concentrated on the production of cross country vehicles, including their own version of the BJ212.

Liebao advertisement, 1994. (PLA 7319 Works).

Changfeng’s big success was the license production of the Mitsubishi Pajero. This production started in 1995 and the Chinese Army was the biggest client.

Changfeng Liebao Pajero.

Changfeng’s production stopped in 2019.

BUT LET’S GO TO THE CARS.

First to a short intermezzo, at the Beijing Show 2006: Changfeng Liebao surprised with a concept of  small pickup, named UU CT3. The same funny car was shown at the Detroit Show 2007. Tycho wrote about it.

Some vague drawings circulated of a four-door car, based on this pickup.

Reality or just some fantasies? At least something like this was never realized.

Changfeng CP2, 2007.

In April 2007 spy photos of a large sedan showed up. According the explanation, the car which was photographed in a tiny workshop, was a prototype of a joint car project of Changfeng Liebao and the mobile phone company Bird. The car was named Changfeng CP2. Photos showed a Mitsubishi engine under the bonnet.

Remarkable, as we never heard anything anymore of this car.
The Bird-Changfeng cooperation resulted in a smaller mpv-style car called Qiling (Kylin) M1A, introduced at the Shanghai Show 2007, later that year.

A year later, at the Beijing Show 2008, Changfeng showed a prototype of another sedan, named Changfeng Kylin CP1A Elite. It was developed by the design company Nature Design from Beijing. The car never came into production.

The Qilin (Kyrin) was a nice looking car. A greenish black with some red touches.

The Qilin CP1A had a wheelbase of 2613mm, sizes LxWxH 4457x 1702x 1445mm. The engine was the CFAG18, a four-cylinder 1796cc.

The weight was 1230kg. Production was promised from February 2009, but never realized.

The year 2009 was even more interesting.  At the Shanghai 2009 Show, Changfeng surprised with a new sedan named Acumen. Changfeng announced the Acumen as a “Volvo S40 lookalike” and you can’t deny that they were right!

The Acumen was made with help of the technology of the Mitsubishi Lancer. It was the Beijing Great Wall Huaguan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. (CH-Auto), Changfeng’s house designers, which did most of the job.

Changan-Ford made the Volvo S40 in China in those years. They produced in total nearly 34.000 vehicles. They never objected the Changfeng product.

The sedan was code named CP21. It was a bit bigger than the CP1A, wheelbase 2640mm (the same as the Volvo), LxWxH 4468/4483x 1770x 1462mm (Volvo S40: 4468/4480x 1770x 1452mm).

In 2009 Hunan Changfeng Auto Works Co., Ltd. and the Guangzhou Automobile Corporation (GAC) signed an agreement for cooperation. Officially Changfeng was now called  Guangzhou Changfeng Auto Co., Ltd.

I don’t know what Acumen means, but internet is explaining: “the ability to make good judgements and take quick decisions.” A name for a car?
Changfeng renamed the auto one year later: now Acuman. Even more weird: “the predominant race in the Adaisical technocracy” or a “psychoactive drug”.

At first the car used the CF4G18D 1796cc engine, later the Dong’an 4G93D 1834cc engine was available.

The serial production started in 2011, 626 were made. That was all, except for one car that was made in 2012.

The second car of the Acumen range, the CP22, was a hatchback, developed on the base of the sedan.
At the Guangzhou Show 2009, the car was expected. When I was at the build up of the show, a day before the opening, a truck with the hatchback arrived. But something strange happened: the truck turned around with the car and was never seen again. No hatchback at the show.

Even more strange: that was all what we have seen of the hatchback.

The third car, the CP23 was a sport coupe. The most beautiful car of the Acumen range, based om the same platform as the CP21 sedan.
The car also made its debut at the Shanghai 2009 Show.

I can’t say much about this coupe, I haven’t any technical details. The car was only shown at the Shanghai Show 2009 and never seen again. But we have nice photos.

After the 626 sedans made in 2011 and the last one in 2012, it was quiet.

But: at the Shanghai Show 2013 GAC partner factory Zhongxing (ZX Auto) reintroduced the unchanged Acumen.

A month later, the car was again introduced, now under the name Zhongxing Ark (Fangzhou), as part of a new project to start a common passenger car factory with Guangzhou Auto (GAC) in Yichang City at the Yangtze River in Hubei Province. The Ark name was also used for the C11 Urban Ark models of Zhongxing.

In 2014, the factory started production.

But, in the 2014 statistics, we see that Zhongxing only made 2.794 Zhongxing Landmarks SUVs and 50.831 Pickups. In 2015 2.541 Urban Arks (C3 and C5), NO sedans.

In September 2014 drawings of an update appear in the press.

And then, January 2016, ZX Auto and GAC announce the introduction of a new make. The  cars produced in Yicheng will be called Lanbao (Runpard). A wink to Liebao (now translated as Leopaard). From the end of 2016 Yicheng will produce an update of the Acumen. Even a new drawing is shown.

Strangely, In February 2016 GAC denies being involved in Lanbao. Even, GAC has nothing to do with Lanbao. It is Zhongxing that registered the Lanbao company, named “Lanbao (Yichang) Automobile Sales Co., Ltd.”
It seems that Lanbao is a scam.

Lanbao SUV. Using the CP2 (Acumen) platform. 

A third life for the Acumen? No, I am sorry, only one car that was shown with the Lanbao logo, was a SUV.

This is the end of the Acumen story. In 2016, the Volvo S40 (2nd gen.) design was already 12 years old. A new revival with such an old design would have had no future in the fast progressing Chinese car industry.