Daewoo Lanos made in Shandong.

December 31 2001, three Daewoo Lanos saloon cars came of the assembly line in Yantai City, Shandong Province, made by the Yantai Autobody Co. Ltd.

Daewoo’s China adventure started with a joint-venture in 1998: the FAW-Daewoo Automobile Engine Co. Ltd. Planned annual production was 300.000 engines. Production started in March 1999. This factory was planned not only to make engines and transmissions, but also other spare parts. In the second phase of the project, plans were to produce 300.000 1.5-litre economy sedans, worth 24.6 billion yuan.

Let us go back to some Korean history of Daewoo. Daewoo started in 1937 as National Motor.  This company, which changed names several times, was bought by the Daewoo Group in 1982.

The Daewoo Lanos, designed by Giugiaro’s Ital Design, was unveiled in 1996.
In 1997 the Asian Financial Crisis broke out, leading to the bankruptcy of the complete Daewoo Group, leaving a debt of 50 billion US dollar.

In 2001 Daewoo sold most of Daewoo Motors’assets to US General Motors. From 2011 the name Daewoo disappeared, the company was now named GM Korea, the cars named Buick and Chevrolet.

For the Lanos assembly, Daewoo found as partner the Yantai Autobody Co. Ltd., part of the Shandong Yiecuang Group Co.  This company was not only active into automotive, but also into trade like importing goats from Cape the Good Hope, South Africa.

To be clear: Daewoo started Lanos assembly outside of the FAW-Daewoo Engine joint-venture. Daewoo had no license to sell the cars all over in China, the cars were sold in Yantai only. As it happened at that time, some cars escaped these regulations and showed up elsewhere in China.

When the Lanos T100 assembly started in Yantai, Daewoo was already negotiating about the sale of Daewoo Motors,  with several auto multinationals.

Some technical info of the Chinese Lanos: length 4271mm, air bag, abs, power steering, centrally controlled doorlocks, non-CFCs air-conditioning, electric windows, 185mm wide tyres and aluminum alloy wheels (nowadays we can’t live without these, at that time luxury).

Daewoo Lanos, photo 2016, CoolcarsinChina.com 2021.

The plan was to produce 300.000 cars annually, expected by 2005.
But history turned out differently: General Motors, the new owner of Daewoo Motors, bought the Yantai Bodyshop for a new company and another product. The company was named Shanghai GM Dongyue Motors Co., a joint venture of Shanghai GM, GM China and SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation), and the production of the Buick Sail (Opel Corsa) and the Buick Excelle (based on the Daewoo Lacetti L200!) was planned here.

In 2004, GM and SAIC bought the FAW-Daewoo engine plant and merged the Dongyue vehicle plant with the engine plant, which was then named Shanghai GM Dongyue Automotive Powertrain Co. Ltd.

The Daewoo Lanos is only built for less than two years in Yantai. I expect that the ckd-production numbers were only a couple of thousands.

About the photos: are these Daewoo Lanos cars made in  Yantai, Shandong province, or made in (South) Korea? I have no idea. At least nothing written at the car makes this clear.