Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot: Tianlong

A while ago my colleague Tycho has written an article about Jinma and Soar, two manufacturers responsible for producing wedding cars. I have taken the liberty to continue in that and present to you another brand that was Jinma’s competitor in this segment – Tianlong.

The history of the company, as usual with older and defunct chinese car makers, is a bit unclear. From what I have gathered, Tianlong has started with production in mid 1990s, and existed until at least 2004. The parent company The Special Purpose (Etiquette Car) Manufacturing Co. Ltd. started off in the city of Binzhou in Shandong province, but in the year 2000 they moved to Huairou district in Beijing and got renamed to Beijing Zhongqi Hengxing Auto Remould Co. Ltd. The cars have found some moderate success in Beijing, being present during the opening ceremony of Ping’an Avenue, however some models were avaliable nation-wide. In the year 2000, there was also a drive from Beijing to Hainan, which included 20 Tianlong cars for advertising. The website went down in late 2004, thats where the trace ends. Now for the good stuff you all are waiting for: lets get a closer look at the cars they made:

BCS5010TYN-C1:

The car got most likely introduced in the year 2000 to the nation-wide chinese car market and remained in the lineup till 2004. Dimensions: 5300x1700x1650 mm, wheelbase 2850mm, weight 1560 kilos, so quite a sizeable car to move around. The engine sadly was quite small – 4 cylinder engine from Dongan (DA462Q), 797cc, 33,5 kW@5000 RPM, 51.5 Nm@3500-4000 RPM, coupled to a 4 speed manual gearbox. So as you can see probably not any good at any speed that would mess up bride’s hair. Top speed was claimed 90 km/h, which was probably about enough coupled with drum brakes all around. Fuel consumption was rated at 7 liters per 100 km, which seems alright coupled with a 60 liter fuel tank. You could get a CD player or leather seats (car was rated for 5 people) as optional extras.

Next up: BCS5020TYN-C1

It was introduced to the nation-wide chinese car market at the same time as its smaller brother, and also remained being offered until 2004. Note the differences, mostly related to the lengthening of the body. The sideskirt is not curvy all the way to the rear wheel, there is a bit more space between the front and rear doors…

It was indeed a bit bigger: 6100x1820x1650 mm, wheelbase 3940 mm, weight 2300 kilos. Luckilly this time, the car got disc brakes at front and more powerful engine to cope with the extra weight of the car (and possibly 2 extra passangers, as the car was rated for 7 people). The engine in question is the well known 491Q, originally made by Toyota as 4Y, coupled to a 5 speed gearbox. No harm in recaping it’s specs: Inline 4, 2237cc, 68 kW@4200-4600 RPM, 177 Nm@2800-3200 RPM. Naturally it being a bigger engine caused a bigger fuel consumption, rated by manufacturer at 10 liters per 100 km. The top speed remained unchanged. Notable optional extras include power steering and alloy wheels (on top of what we mentioned before), which were not avaliable for the BCS5010TYN-C1.

Few things to note, luckilly it seems like one BCS5020TYN-C1 still exists in a museum, at the time wrongly identified as Jinma – see the article by Tycho here: 

But wait! In may of 2024, i have realised we are actually dealing with multiple, slightly different cars. The two were probably sold alongside each other, with the same name. Both of them are featured in the same brochure, and were pictured on website at the same time.

A confusing third version was actually briefly featured in a 2001 movie Para Para Sakura, where we got a nice view of its rear end.

The car features the more upright windshield (the angle of it is briefly visible earlier) with the green colored stripe at the top, yet the rear is slightly different compared to the car from the museum. It has 6 lights compared to 8, and the bootlid is shorter with the spare not being fitted on top of it. As is the usual case, every newly gained knowledge ends up brining up more questions.

And finally, similar limo was built by the company still in Bizhou – ZQZ5020XLYC. We dont have pictures of it, but given that it was 6,3 meters long, rated for 5-7 people and using the 491Q engine it is safe to assume it was something similar in design. It could even perhaps be one of the 3 different variants pictured above.

Tianlong has not made only open top cars, but hardtops aswell.

This car below is sometimes listed as BCS5021TYN-Y1, sometimes as BCS5020TYN-Y1. I belive the first name is correct. The years of manufacturing are unknown. Height is probably 1700 mm, rest of the details I belive match with the C1. Sadly the website does not seem to list its technical specs.

The car thats consistently being called BCS5020TYN-Y1 is this rather striking model. It does not share the front end with the other Tianlongs. The website lists specs, which I belive are correct for this design, as there design changes are rather extensive (so the change in dimensions is logical). It remained on offer until 2004, but I am not sure if more than one were ever built.

Reason for my doubtfullness is the fact that Erik van Ingen Schenau has spotted one in 2001, which seems to be the identical car.

Dimensions: 5930×17901700 mm. Weight is hefty 2560 kilos, fuel consumption has risen to 12 liters per 100 kilometers.Wheelbase, gearbox, engine, brakes etc. remain the same. Only notable difference is the addition over the open top versions was the ability to order power door locks.

Tycho has sent me pictures of a mysterious hardtop model that I havent seen anywhere else, sporting a red and gold paintjob.

With the front and rear end styling it is undoubtedly a Tianlong, but the middle section is strange, as if taken out of more modern car. EDIT: Our reader somil sucessfully identified the car doors belonging to a 1987-1991 S130 Crown sedan. The side-skirt suggest it is based on the longer BCS5020TYN-C1.

A small side note, Tianlong did build a handful of 2-door cars too. There is not much info avaliable about them, but I will present them to you regardless. First one is a two door cabrio sometimes refered to as BCS5010TYN-C1.

At least two car of this type should still exist, Tycho has sent me a picture of them from his archives (one is in the background).

Hubcaps dont match with the promo picture, but what is more strange, the grille gives me Jianma vibes. It is not, however, same as found on the Jinma cars, as seen below in this comparason picture

Interior looks to be in quite bad condition, and the questionable leopard skin finish doesnt help the matter. Radio and the passanger side handle are bigger than what we have seen on the promotional picture.

A similar, but not identical car was built before the company moved to Beijing as ZQZ5020 note different cutout in the doors, straight windshield… Looks very similar to what Jinma was making at the time.

All of the Tianlongs to my knowledge were handbuilt on top of FAW Jiefang CA1021U2 chassis, a copy of Toyota Hilux:

This is all from me for today, but soon we will take a look at another “grandfather’s car” company, Jianhua. Stay tuned!

Special thanks to Erik van Ingen Schenau and Tycho de Feijter for providing me with lots of pictures and info, and to my friend Kevin for lending me a helping hand with this article.